Having recently talked about of couple of embarrassingly awful US World War 2 aircraft it wouldn’t be fair if I didn’t mention some from my side of the Atlantic that were knocked together in the jolly old British Isles! Sadly, there are way too many to cover so I’ll just take a deep breath and mention a few!

Adverts for Boulton and Paul garden sunrooms.

The Wonderful Airfix Defiant model.

The ungainly Rhino parachute that the Defiant gunners wore.

The Sopwith Camel that Boulton Paul built under licence.

Boulton Paul had become well known as a turret manufacturer.

The ungainly Rhino parachute that the Defiant gunners had to cope with.

Boulton Paul Defiants lined up on the ground.

Taken out of front line operations the Defiant found a place as a target tug aircraft.

The large and slow Fairey Battle.

The Battle’s bomb aimer’s position.

Bombing up a Battle.

How many apprentices does it take to push a Fairey Battle?

The Fairey Swordfish.

The aircraft due to replace the Swordfish, the Fairey Albacore.

An Albacore departs from HMS Victorious.

The damaged and sunk capital ships of the Italian Navy after the Battle of Taranto.

Images under Creative Commons licence with thanks to Boulton & Paul Ltd, Airfix, the RAF, Air Historic Branch RAF, RN, and The Australian War Memorial Collection,