Winter of 41..Spitfire Artist Proof Edition

Description

Winter of 41..
Overall size of all prints approx. 13” x 19” (33 x 48cms)

Heavy snow during the winter of 1941 sometimes kept pilots and their
aircraft grounded, including Spitfire ‘G’ George assigned to Geoffrey Wellum.

Signed by Squadron Leader Geoffrey Wellum DFC  and Flight Lieutenant R G (Bob) Large, DFC, Legion d’Honneur.

75 Prints in the Artist Proof Edition £95.00

Please see below for further details.

Squadron Leader Geoffrey Wellum DFC joined the RAF with a Short Service Commission in August 1939. He joined no 92 Squadron flying Spitfires in June 1940 at the time of Dunkirk.
He flew throughout the Battle of Britain, later completing over 50 fighter sweeps and escorts over northern France and Belgium until August 1941.
He then joined 65 Squadron as Flight Commander in March 1942 operating over northern France and flew off Aircraft Carrier Furious on operation Pedestal, to Malta.
(Geoff was a Flt. Lt. during “Operation Pedestal”) He returned to the UK as a test pilot Gloster Aircraft and finished the war as a Pilot Attack Instructor.

Geoffrey Wellum was credited with three destroyed, four probables and several damaged and was awarded the DFC in July 1941.
Winter of 41..

Flight Lieutenant R G (Bob) Large, DFC, Legion d’Honneur, learned to fly in Scotland in 1940 and in 1941 joined 616 Squadron as part of the Tangmere Wing,
commanded by the famous legless pilot Wing Commander Douglas Bader. The Squadron flew Fighter and Bomber sweeps over Northern France.
The remains of Bob’s Spitfire lie at the bottom of the sea ten miles off Hythe (where he now lives) after being bounced by eighty plus ME 109Gs over the English Channel.
Having learned of the activities of 161 SD Squadron he was interviewed by the CO, Wing Commander Lewis Hodges, and joined the Lysander Flight.
He then flew many important missions into occupied France in single,
double and a memorable treble pickup when his excuse for being late at the rendezvous was that he had had a haircut “in the firm’s time” because “it grew in the firm’s time”!
After D-Day he returned to Fighter Command and later flew Meteors. (Bob’s dog, Patrick,
became the first dog in the Allied Forces to fly in a jet which took place in a Meteor 3 on 11th May 1946 and is now recorded in the Guinness Book of Records!)
Winter of 41..

Email: steve@sunsetaviationart.co.uk