Short Stirling

[Invader26]

RAAF pilot, Plt Off Ron Middleton won the Victoria Cross [VC] in a Stirling...
http://www.awm.gov.au/people/P10676514/

[old iron]

There was a VC also won by Arthur Louis Aaron http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arthur_Louis_Aaron aboard a Stirling.

[ErrolC]

They were also used for personnel and supply drops (mainly to The Resistance), the lack of a ceiling not being an issue, plus a handy un-used ventral turret ring.
http://www.raf38group.org/history

Here is some Pathe footage of a supply dump to the 6th Airborne in June 1944.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DvlqpyCdemg#t=253

Caption given to IWM photo B5880 in the Osprey book ‘Normandy 1944: Allied Landings and Breakout’:

“Not a paratroop drop but a resupply to British 6 Airborne Division by RAF Stirling bombers on 23 June. The positions of 6 Airborne at St Aubin d’Arquenay on the eastern flank of the still very small beachhead were too exposed for supplies to get through easily overland, and the rate of supplies landing over the beach had still not recovered from The Great Storm.”

[Aeronut]

The Stirling excelled as an Airborne Forces aircraft in fact it was arguably the best Airborne Forces aircraft of the war.
Not only could it tug all allied gliders up to the tank carrying Hamilcar but it could carry and drop the largest amont of supplies, not just from its bomb bays but also using a roller conveyor floor in the fuselage (an operational world's first?)
In the MkIV the ventral turret ring exit was replaced by a large rectangular floor opening through which the Airborne Pannier could be dropped as well as paratroops. When it came to paratroops it could carry two more paratroops than the C-47 and drop twelve supply loads compared to the C-47 six at the same time.

[Mossie]

My dad was a Stirling pilot with 570 sqdn and he did the Arnhem resupply and many secret SOE supply missions at night and low level to France and Norway.
He found it quite manoeuvrable at low level, once on a cross country he 'diverted' to the Textile Mill he worked at before the war and had a real blast doing a low level beat up !

[TOM WALSH]

From Volume II of "Remembering The Canadian Yanks", due out later this year:

John Harlan Stickell was a strapping American farm boy who piloted multi-engined heavy bombers in the European Theatre of Operation (ETO) and the Pacific Theatre of Operation (PTO) in World War II. Flying Short Stirlings over Germany as a member of the Royal Canadian Air Force (RCAF), he earned three British gallantry awards - the Distinguished Service Order (DSO), the Distinguished Flying Cross (DFC) and a Mention in Despatches (MiD).

Transferring to the United States Naval Reserve (USNR) as a Lieutenant, Stickell flew Consolidated PB4Y-1 Liberators in the central and western Pacific. There he won an Air Medal, an American DFC and, after his death from combat wounds in December, 1943, a Posthumous Navy Cross. Months later, this highly regarded but little known Naval aviator, was duly honoured by his Country when, in a move usually reserved for Presidents, Admirals, Senators and the like, the United States Navy (USN) named a Warship after this decorated airman from Gilson, Illinois. On October 31, 1945, a 3,460 Ton Gearing Class Destroyer (DD-888) was proudly commissioned into U. S. Naval Service as the USS Stickell.

Cheers,

Tom Walsh.

[Lightninglover]

More good videos on the Stirling

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WaN91_NGJoI

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BRKnLO-HJu8

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TYYVGUXQ31I

[Mossie]

Wonder whether that aircraft Macrobert's reply (first video) or the crew flying it survived the war......doubt it !

[TOM WALSH]

Lt. John Harlan Stickell USNR was accorded one additional honour by the US Government. A 6,800' long x 400' wide bomber and fighter strip built on Eniwetok Atoll in the Marshall Islands in February, 1944, was dedicated as Stickell Field. Principally developed as a Navy/Marine base, this facility housed, at one point, more than 300 combat aircraft! Remnants of this unused airfield still exist today.

Cheers,

Tom Walsh.

[JohnB]

For an intelligent analysis of why the UK had 4-engine bombers and Germany didn't read:
The Sky on Fire, The First Battle of Britain, 1917-1918 by (USAF) Major Raymond Fredette.

And Hitler was many things (most of them bad)...but an idiot was not one of them.

BTW: The Stirling is remembered at RAF Fairford (a wartime Stirling base). The USAF-operated Visiting Officer's Quarters in named The Stirling Inn...and their letterhead had/has a drawing of the aircraft on it.

[Dan Jones]

Wonder whether that aircraft Macrobert's reply (first video) or the crew flying it survived the war......doubt it !

My understanding is that it did, and was scrapped alongside Guy Gibson's Lancaster.

[Lightninglover]

MacRoberts Reply flew about ten missions when it crashed on takeoff in 1942 after both port engines failed. It crashed into a group of Spitfires one of which became wedged underneath. Though seriously damaged it was rebuilt and then sent to a OTU (Operational Training Unit).

It crashed in England in 1943 and was written off.

Another Stirling was given the name and it was lost in 1943 on a mining operation. Two of the original crew died in that loss.

[Chris Brame]

So are there any chunks of Stirling known to be out there (like garden sheds cut from fuselages, farmer's trailers with landing gear wheels, bits cleaned up from scrapyards, etc.)?

[Milmart Militaria]

So are there any chunks of Stirling known to be out there (like garden sheds cut from fuselages, farmer's trailers with landing gear wheels, bits cleaned up from scrapyards, etc.)?

http://stirlingproject.co.uk/

[Rajay]

Feature story about the Short Stirling in the latest Air Classics magazine - just got my copy the other day...

What a co-inky-dink!