Wellington Mk2 or Mk 3 - how can you tell the difference?

I've been trying to find out how different the Wellington Mk2 was from the Wellington Mk3. The only difference I can see is the engines - Merlins or hercules, but did they visually look different, at a glance?

Would a Mk 2 or 3 be easily identified under heavy fire, flak, bullets etc or is there a chance of misidentification?

Thanks

 

Nicola - not from ground observation...because most references note that the obvious difference is the carburettor air intake scoop on the UPPER surface of the Hercules XI nacelles!

 

Thanks Phylo, what I'm trying to work out, is could a Mk 2 be mistaken for a Mk 3 in action conditions, ie at 15k feet, in the dark, with flak, tracer bullets and various other bits & pieces happening. Would the crew of another plane over head or to one side be 100% sure that they had seen a Mk 3 and not a Mk2, or vice versa.

 

Thanks Owen, I had checked that page, but obviously missed that.

 

Pilot's notes - Wellington

 

Thanks Phylo, what I'm trying to work out, is could a Mk 2 be mistaken for a Mk 3 in action conditions, ie at 15k feet, in the dark, with flak, tracer bullets and various other bits & pieces happening. Would the crew of another plane over head or to one side be 100% sure that they had seen a Mk 3 and not a Mk2, or vice versa.

Surely the best environment to enjoy the finer ponits of the airplane recognition art Picture yourself there, and tell me if you would identify a Wellington, Stirling, Halifax, Whitley, Manchester, Lancaster or what-have-you, never mind the mark! At least the Hampden would have had two tails and no rear turret.

 

Owen, how far apart did the planes in a bomber stream fly, even assuming CAVU? Not quite the same thing as a USAAC bomber box, I suppose, much less the Red Arrows. And your take on the illumination provided by moon-, star-, searchlight, cloud reflection, ordnance, target fires?

 

What about radio silence? The idea was to avoid detection, Owen, any radio detection gear would make short work of it. And they had to fly apart to avoid collision risk, not to mention blue-on-blue fire, or rather black-on-black at night.

And you still ask the poor crews to tell if the engines they saw (saw?) were round or pointy?

May I advise a fine fiction work I read? Len Deighton's "Bomber". Made quite an impression on me long ago.

See? I'm stretching my neck already for the Bomber Barons in the Forum

 

Flew just once (non-op) in a Wimpy as a tail end Charlie. You're a long way from the C of G so it's like riding a bucking bronco! Worst flight I ever had. I was so bloody cold within half an hour I could hardly make it to the Elson chemical toilet. On the subject of ACR, a WOp/AG once said to me "if they're big, and flying in the same direction as you, you 'd hope they were friendly". Whether it would be possible to distinguish such detail as is suggested would surely depend upon time date and the prevailing atmospheric/weather conditions. On cloudless night with no Moon the only early warning of approaching hostiles could be to look for the star pattern to change, by a succesion of stars disappearing from view.

 

What about radio silence?


...or at least kept to an absolute minimum; both sides were listening to the others' R/T traffic from 1940 on...

 

The reason Im trying to clarify this is to try and eliminate/confirm crash sites that are possibles for my uncle's plane.

There were 5 planes lost that night, 4 Wellingtons (2 Mk2s & 2 Mk 3s) & 1 Manchester.

I've been through all the evidence that I've found, from German records, UK records and general stuff I've found on the internet and plotted it all on a map.

Crash site1:
Hamburg
Different record entries show evidence for Flak, and an aircraft seen falling in flames, there is also a record in the AAG at Seevotal/Ramelsloh Ohlenshort of a plane being hit. Seevotal is just below Hamburg.
Result: Z8511 found and all crew buried
This plane was a Wellington Mk 2 so can be scratched from the search as is a known definite

Crash site 2:
Near Lastrup, south of Cloppenburg
This is a Night Fighter claim and has been connected to the Manchester L7427. I found a report on line that there was only 1 survivor of this plane Peter Anthony Lovegrove, who died 6 months later as a POW.

Crahs site 2a
I'm presuming he was able to clarify more or less where they crashed so this scratches the 2nd site off the list, to a degree of certainty of about 85% as there was also a Wellington seen around the Bremen area which to the right of Cloppenburg, with 1 engine hit which tried several to deploy stars (didn't know quite what these were or what they were supposed to do) but which proved ineffective and was claimed as a loss.

Crash site 3
Near Barssel/Roggenburg left of Oldenburg
I found a report on line of a survivor from this crash: Hubert Brooks which places his crash roughly in this area. His plane was X3467. This plane was a Wellington Mk3.

This leaves 2 possible sites & another anomaly.

Crash site 4
Between Wilhelmshaven and Bremerhaven. The AAGs claim a kill here and a plane was seen falling in flames, but there its no known definitely which one.

Crash site 5
Over Vlieland & West Terschelling, North Holland, over the North Sea
A Night fighter claims this one (and this is the one that most people think is X3757 'my' plane). In the UK records it says a Wellington Mk 3 was seen about 50 miles astern and there was also evidence of combat, tracer bullets etc seen.

Anomalies:
A Wellington (the records are not sure if its the same one or not) was seen going the other way over Norderney which is east of Terschelling and there a record of Flak & a burning plane seen, 15 miles NW of Cuxhaven which is even further East.

These are mostly likely the plane lost at Wilhelmshaven, but was it the 'missing Mk2'? Evidence says it was, if the witnesses who saw a Mk 3 over the North Sea are correct. If they are correct, the only place really that x3757 can be even though I hate to admit it) is over the sea.

But which was the plane seen at Bremen? It seems most likely to me to be X3467, the plane lost near Barssel

 

Surely the best environment to enjoy the finer ponits of the airplane recognition art Picture yourself there, and tell me if you would identify a Wellington, Stirling, Halifax, Whitley, Manchester, Lancaster or what-have-you, never mind the mark! At least the Hampden would have had two tails and no rear turret.

At the moment Za I'm having difficulty even seeing the engine differences in the pics here (very girlie I know), I definitely would be able to see them under battle conditions lol.

 

Flew just once (non-op) in a Wimpy as a tail end Charlie. You're a long way from the C of G so it's like riding a bucking bronco! Worst flight I ever had. I was so bloody cold within half an hour I could hardly make it to the Elson chemical toilet. On the subject of ACR, a WOp/AG once said to me "if they're big, and flying in the same direction as you, you 'd hope they were friendly". Whether it would be possible to distinguish such detail as is suggested would surely depend upon time date and the prevailing atmospheric/weather conditions. On cloudless night with no Moon the only early warning of approaching hostiles could be to look for the star pattern to change, by a succesion of stars disappearing from view.

From what I know, the weather was supposed to be good, but was bad when they got there. cloud was 10/10 which if I've understood correctly is bad as they couldn't see a blasted thing. the post raid reports comment on how they weren't able to confirm hits as the cloud was too thick, only see the flare of explosions through the cloud. Apparently half the planes didn't even drop their bombs as they couldn't see their targets. And the survivor of X3467 commented in his book, how they were in bound and had already picked up flak etc and had had to drop their bomb load & then try & dash for home.

 

At the moment Za I'm having difficulty even seeing the engine differences in the pics here (very girlie I know), I definitely would be able to see them under battle conditions lol.

Nicola, look at Owen's post no. 8 above, compare the first and last two photos. That's what I mean by "pointy" and "round" engines , or Merlins and Hercules. The "pointy" Merlin is what mainly defines the Mk.II, all the other versions were Hercules.

Nice job you're doing, I wouldn't know where or how to start!