Black Friday - Førde Fjord, Friday, 9th February 1945

Dan_RAFBC · May 13, 2025, 7:43pm

“BLACK FRIDAY” - FØRDE FJORD, FRIDAY, 9TH FEBRUARY 1945

CONTENTS

MISSION OVERVIEW
I - AIRCRAFT ORDER OF BATTLE
II - CLAIMS
III - LOCATIONS OF INTEREST
IV - MISSION INSTALLATION
V - CREDITS
VI - SOURCES

MISSION OVERVIEW

Despite a hard winter in the north of Scotland that saw the Beaufighters of the Dallachy Strike Wing regularly covered in snow, the wing had remained active through most of December and early January, being curtailed only later that month by severe weather. It was a cosmopolitan, multinational affair made up of four squadrons of Beaufighter Mk.Xs, hailing from Britain, Canada, Australia and New Zealand respectively. It was a motley gathering with some veteran aircraft faded, repaired and overpainted, whilst others were new machines just recently delivered. Some had originally been torpedo carrying variants (Torbeaus), though as the war progressed these were converted; leaving some carrying eight 60lb rocket-projectiles (RP-3s) and others armed just with their four inboard 20mm cannons and six wing-mounted .303 machine guns. The Beaus carrying RPs were intended as the main strike force, whilst those with just cannons were primarily tasked with AAA suppression. Strikes were large-scale affairs, involving not just the Strike Wing but escort fighters, Air Sea Rescue (ASR) aircraft and sometimes Mosquitoes from the neighbouring Banff Strike Wing. Such operations could entail formations of 50+ aircraft crossing 300 miles of the North Sea at low-level to attack enemy targets in the fjords and coastal waters of occupied Norway.
On the morning of 9th of February, a pair Beaufighters of 489 Sqn RNZAF out on reconnaissance patrol over the Norwegian coast, reported spotting a German destroyer. Military intelligence were able to identify this as ‘KMS Z33’, a 1936A (mob) ‘Narvik class’ destroyer that had run aground two days before and was undergoing repairs in Førde Fjord. Kriegsmarine targets of any size were now a rarity at this point in the war, and Z33 was in fact the last sizeable warship left in Norway.
This target proved an alluring objective for the allies, and plans were rapidly made to dispatch a strike force that afternoon to deal with this ongoing threat to allied shipping. It was to be led by Wing Commander Colin Milson of 455 Sqn RAAF, who at 25 was already a veteran of numerous shipping strikes in the Mediterranean, as well as the North Sea. The group was assembled primarily from 404, 144 and 455 Sqns, with a single outrider from 489 Sqn; totalling 32 Beaufighters. Of these, only 404 and 455 Sqns were armed with RPs. These were to be joined in the air by an escort of 12 Mustang IIIs of 65 Sqn, based in RAF Peterhead and 2 Warwick ASR boat-carrying aircraft from 279 Sqn out of RAF Fraserburgh. Unfortunately, one of the Mustangs developed engine trouble not long after take-off and had to return to base; another went with him in case of emergency bail out. As a result the mission was left with only 10 escorts, in a strike package totalling 46 aircraft.
Aircraft started to take off from Dallachy at around 13.45, and within ten minutes the wing was airborne and soon joined by its escort and ASR aircraft. As F/S Stan Butler of 144 Sqn later recalled “we formed up and set course at low level in loose formation vics of three. The weather was not bad; there were rain squalls here and there, but visibility was reasonably good. Everything was going according to plan."
Proceeding over the North Sea at around 300ft they made landfall west of Sogne Fjord at 15.40. At this point two Beaus, one from 144 Sqn and the other from 489 Sqn, separated from the main group to scout ahead. They had been assigned as ‘outriders’ and were tasked with locating the target and communicating its position and what defences were in place to protect it.
Low cloud cover over Norway made this difficult and unbeknownst to the outriders the warship had already been moved further up the fjord, where it could be better protected. They were unable to locate the ship at its last known location, though did see a lone German fighter at some distance, they turned east over the town of Førde before proceeding north to check the next fjord. At 15.50 they contacted Milson to say they could not find the target.
Whilst the outriders were unsuccessful in spotting the target, the main strike force had been sighted and reported. At 15.50, 9 and 12 Staffeln of JG 5, based on Herdla Island some 70 miles SSW of Forde, were scrambled to intercept the attackers.
The main strike force proceeded up Førde Fjord still unsure of the destroyer’s location only to find themselves overflying the target and subjected to heavy flak. The original plan had been to evaluate the target then turn down the fjord and attack from the east, enabling a smooth exit westward, down the fjord and out to sea. However, the steep sides of the fjord made it impossible to access Z33 from that direction The new situation required a different approach and rapid re-evaluation. To make matters worse Z33 was far from alone. She was in fact surrounded by a variety of smaller stationary naval craft: Described in the 144 sqn’s post-mission ORB as “…a ‘Sperrbrecher’ (a minesweeper/flakship), Two ‘M class’ minesweepers, a heavily armed patrol vessel, and five unidentified vessels”. The location also contained a number of coastal AAA positions.
Milson realised the only means of attacking the target was to turn the group west to the mouth of the narrow fjord then attack eastwards flying in twos and threes into heavy flak before peeling off north over the mountains to then turn west and head for home. This was a deviation from the normal attack procedure where the beaufighters would attack the target en-masse, but the steep mountains in this location prevented this approach.
At 16.10, just as Milson was leading the first wave of attacks on the destroyer, fourteen FW190s of 9./JG5 and 12./JG5 arrived. Led respectively by Fw. Rudolf Artner and Lt. Rudolf ‘Rudi’ Linz; both veteran aces of the Eastern front. The Focke Wulfs of 9./JG5 dived on the Beaufighters queueing to attack. The escort aircraft patrolling above them at 4000ft were caught by surprise and about to dive to assist the Beaus, when they too came under attack by three FW190s from 12./JG5. One head-on contact with the Mustangs left one of the German aircraft smoking and crippled. The pilot, Lt. Karl-Heinz “Charly” Koch successfully bailed out and landed in the Fjord, where he was later picked up by Norwegians. Another Mustang successfully downed ‘White 22’. The pilot Fj.Ofw. Otto Leibfried managed to escape his aircraft despite being injured and landed safely. Tragically however he was in an area inaccessible in winter, and survived for a few days firing off flares each night in the hope of rescue. His body was not recovered until the summer when it was found lying on a makeshift bed of fir branches
What followed in the air was a whirling melee of over 50 aircraft, as the Beaufighters continued to pursue their primary objective through a savage ‘box barrage’ of flak and attacking enemy fighters, whilst the RAF Mustangs engaged the enemy in dogfights and tried to protect the Beaufighters from their predation.
It seems from German sources that the first aircraft shot down was 404 Sqn Beaufighter ‘EO-V’ crewed by pilot P/O William E. Blunderfield and navigator P/O William A. Jackson. Their craft was said to have lost its tail, and exploded on hitting the water. Uffz. Heinz Orlowski pursued ‘EO-C’ another 404 Sqn plane; its chase watched with horror by residents on the ground, near Gaular, as the Beaufighter tried to make a forced landing on an elevated location before breaking-up. The cockpit section then slid 500m down the hillside. Both crew: pilot P/O. Hugh C. Lynch and navigator P/O Charles W. Knight were killed in the crash – it was their first strike mission. A Mustang III piloted by W/O. Cecil Claude Caesar tried to save the Beaufighter only to find itself also attacked by Orlowski. A dogfight ensued, ending with Caesar’s plane being shot down and his death. Orlowski’s plane however had also suffered damage in the duel and he was forced to bail out. Too low for his chute to open fully, he miraculously plummeted into a steep snowfield below, causing a minor avalanche. The pressure of the snow pushed the trigger on his flare pistol resulting in burns to his leg as he tumbled down the mountainside. He was found sheltering in a barn by locals and duly handed over to the Germans. He was to spend the remaining months of the war convalescing in the base hospital at Herdla.
Staffelführer Ob Lt. Rudolf ‘Rudi’ Linz was the highest scoring pilot present at the battle and led the 12./JG5 contingent. He was a veteran of the Eastern front with some 70 victories to his name, mostly won in the East. He and his wingman FW. Rudolf Artner were the first to attack the Beaufighters, claiming one each, so Linz may have been responsible for the loss of EO-V. He was posthumously credited with downing an escort fighter as well, though this conflicts with Orlowski’s corroborated claim on Caesar’s aircraft - the only Mustang lost that day. Regardless, he was caught off guard whilst pursuing another Beaufighter and fell to guns of a Mustang piloted by either F/L Jimmy Butler, or F/O William Black. Orlowski witnessed his fate and said his plane was engulfed in flames.
Beau ‘PL-Q’ piloted by W/O F.E.C Morton, had a particularly lucky escape when it found itself pursued by four Fw190s. Its navigator W/O D.C. Mascell was able to put 50 rounds into one of them causing it to dive away steeply and they were then able to reach cloud cover and evade the others.
The frenetic battle lasted for 15 long, hard-fought minutes before the protagonists, all short on fuel and ammunition, finally disengaged at around 16.25. Most of the German fighters had returned to Herdla within the hour. However it would take the last of the Beaufighters, some heavily damaged, until 18.45 before they reached the safety of RAF Dallachy. The engagement proved to be the largest ever fought in the skies over Norway.
Accounts of the battle are mixed, and each side officially claimed different numbers of victories and losses. The German records laid claim to three Mustangs and eight Beaufighters destroyed, whilst the Allied claims were of four Fw190s downed, and two damaged. Of the nine Beaufighters lost, the RAF only attributed two to enemy fighters, with the remaining seven believed to be victims of flak. From examination of the unit records of all the combatants a better picture is possible. The Allies lost one escort fighter and nine Beaufighters (six of those coming from 404 Sqn), whilst the Germans lost five Fw190s. The human cost was to be the loss of 14 allied aircrew and 2 Luftwaffe pilots. On the ships four sailors died on Z33, and three on VP6808 (a converted trawler) and possibly others on the remaining ships and shore batteries. Five allied airmen were taken as prisoners of war, and transported to POW camps in Germany for the remaining months of the conflict; all survived and finally returned home.
The prized target: KMS Z33 was damaged, with at least two confirmed rocket impacts but survived the battle. RAF accounts note that one of the M-Class minesweepers was badly damaged and smoking heavily, whilst the Sperrbrecher was left burning amidships and also smoking. Z33 finally made it back to the Baltic at the start of April, but was decommissioned before the end of the war. After the war she was allocated to the Russian navy and renamed Provornyy (‘Nimble’), where she became a training ship. She was damaged in a fire in 1960, and subsequently scrapped in 1962.
The level of losses for the Commonwealth Beaufighter crews were shocking, with a number of the surviving aircraft only just making it back to Dallachy, three of which had to make wheels-up, crash-landings. It constituted the heaviest losses in a single mission the Strike Wings had ever experienced and became known as ‘Black Friday’ in Britain, and in Canada, whose 404 Sqn had suffered the brunt of the destruction, was referred to as ‘Fatal Friday’. As a result of the experience Coastal Command changed the focus of strikes away from naval targets and onto enemy merchant shipping. An additional squadron of Mustangs was also redirected to the North of Scotland to provide supplementary escort cover. From its inception in Oct 1944, until the end of the war just six months later, the Dallachy Strike Wing lost more than 70 aircrew.
Flying Officers N. R. Spink and L. R. Clifford of 455 Sqn, and J. E. Nelson of 404 Sqn all received the DFC for their actions during this mission. The mission leader, Wing Commander Colin Milson, received a bar to his existing DSO for his courage and leadership during the mission, whilst Lt. Rudolf ‘Rudi’ Linz was posthumously awarded the Knight’s Cross of the Iron Cross.

APPENDIX I - AIRCRAFT ORDER OF BATTLE

No. 65 Squadron RAF
Station: RAF Peterhead
Group: No. 13 Group
Command: Fighter Command
Aircraft: North American Mustang Mk.III

KH580, YT-_
Pilot: Flight Lieutenant Douglas Mackenzie Davidson

FB383, YT-_
Pilot: Flight Lieutenant R. L. Sims

KH582, YT-_
Pilot: Flying Officer D. W. Davis

FB376, YT-Q
Pilot: Flight Lieutenant J. W. Foster

HB831, YT-_
Pilot: Flying Officer T. S. Richardson

KH484, YT-S
Pilot: Flight Lieutenant Jimmy Butler

FB360, YT-_
Pilot: Warrant Officer E. D. Stone

HB835, YT-P,
Pilot: Flying Officer William L. Black

HB845, YT-L
Pilot: Flight Lieutenant G. C. L. Watt

HB836, YT-N
Pilot: Warrant Officer Cecil Claude Caesar - KIA (aged 31) - buried Haugesund (Rossebo) Var Frelsers Cemetery
Failed To Return

No. 144 Squadron RAF
Station: RAF Dallachy
Group: No. 18 Group
Command: Coastal Command
Aircraft: Bristol Beaufighter Mk.X

NV138, PL-R
Pilot: Squadron Leader G. D. W. Rogers
Navigator: Flying Officer A. E. Thurgood

NE743, PL-Y
Pilot Officer Percival Charles Smith DFC - POW
Navigator: Pilot Officer Frederick Stanley Holly - POW
Failed To Return

NT929, PL-Z
Pilot: Warrant Officer R. H. Field
Navigator: Flight Sergeant D. H. Anstey

NE832, PL-Q
Pilot: Warrant Officer P. E. C. Morton
Navigator: Warrant Officer D. C. Mascell

NE578, PL-K
Pilot: Warrant Officer J. G. H. Murphy
Navigator: Flight Sergeant R. R. Winter

_, PL-L
Pilot: Flight Sergeant D. E. Reeves
Navigator: Flight Sergeant G. Ogilvie

_, PL-S
Pilot: Flight Lieutenant J. L. Power
Navigator: Flying Officer D. H. Foxall

NE831, PL-O
Pilot: Flight Sergeant S. A. Butler
Navigator: Flight Sergeant C. B. Nicholl

_, PL-D
Pilot: Flight Lieutenant R. S. Harrison
Navigator: Warrant Officer T. D. J. Wilkinson
Outrider

No. 279 Squadron RAF
Station: RAF Fraserburgh
Group: No. 18 Group
Command: Coastal Command
Aircraft: Vickers Warwick ASR Mk.I with Airborne Boat

_, RL-S,
Pilot: Lieutenant W. W. Shanks USAAF
Navigator: Flight Lieutenant A. Perelman
Wireless Operator Air: Flight Sergeant D. W. Gilyard
Wireless Operator Air: Flight Sergeant D. R. Austin
Wireless Operator Air: Flight Sergeant J. T. Wood
Air Gunner: Warrant Officer A. L. Pole

HG170, RL-R
Pilot: Flying Officer J. Grimston
Navigator: Pilot Officer W. P. H. Luck
Wireless Operator Air: Flight Sergeant A. H. Boram
Wireless Operator Air: Flight Sergeant R. G. Foley
Wireless Operator Air: Flight Sergeant E. G. Prior
Air Gunner: Flight Lieutenant R. S. Smith

No. 404 Squadron RCAF
Station: RAF Dallachy
Group: No. 18 Group
Command: Coastal Command
Aircraft: Bristol Beaufighter Mk.X with RP

NE339, EO-U
Pilot: Squadron Leader W. R. Christison DFC
Navigator: Flight Lieutenant W. J. Toon

NE686, EO-T
Pilot: Flying Officer H. P. Flynn
Navigator: Pilot Officer M. H. Michael

NE825, EO-G
Pilot: Flight Lieutenant J. B. A. Stewart
Navigator: Flying Officer A. A. Johnston

NV422, EO-C
Pilot: Flying Officer H. C. Lynch - KIA (aged 24) - buried Haugesund (Rossebo) Var Frelsers Cemetery.
Navigator: Flying Officer C. W. Knight - KIA (aged 27) - buried Haugesund (Rossebo) Var Frelsers Cemetery.
Failed To Return

NE761, EO-W
Pilot: Flying Officer P. R. Myrick - KIA (aged 22) - buried Haugesund (Rossebo) Var Frelsers Cemetery.
Navigator: Flight Sergeant C. G. Berges - KIA (aged 27) - buried Haugesund (Rossebo) Var Frelsers Cemetery.
Failed To Return

NT916, EO-S
Pilot: Flying Officer J. E. Nelson DFC (Awarded for actions during this battle)
Navigator: Warrant Officer E. G. Gracie

NE669, EO-A
Pilot: Pilot Officer H. W. R. Ramsden
Navigator: Warrant Officer R. Rumble

RD136, EO-Q1
Pilot: Flying Officer H. Smook - KIA (aged 20) - commemorated Runnymede Memorial
Navigator: Warrant Officer A. M. Duckworth - KIA (aged 23) - buried Haugesund (Rossebo) Var Frelsers Cemetery.
Failed To Return

NT922, EO-V
Pilot: Pilot Officer W. J. Jackson - KIA (aged 27) - commemorated Runnymede Memorial
Navigator: Pilot Officer H. E. Blunderfield - KIA (aged 22) - buried Haugesund (Rossebo) Var Frelsers Cemetery.
Failed To Return

NV292, EO-O
Pilot: Flying Officer J. R. Savard - POW
Navigator: Pilot Officer J. Middleton - KIA (aged 30)
Failed To Return

NT890, EO-F
Pilot: Flying Officer C. Smerneos - KIA (aged 24) - buried Haugesund (Rossebo) Var Frelsers Cemetery.
Navigator: Flying Officer N. D. Cochrane - KIA (aged 25) - buried Haugesund (Rossebo) Var Frelsers Cemetery.
Failed To Return

No. 455 Squadron RAAF
Station: RAF Dallachy
Group: No. 18 Group
Command: Coastal Command
Aircraft: Bristol Beaufighter Mk.X with RP

NE347, UB-K
Pilot: Wing Commander C. G. Milson DSO and Bar DFC (Bar added to DSO for actions during this battle)
Navigator: Pilot Officer, R. E. Jones DFC

NV199, UB-O
Pilot: Flight Lieutenant Robert Charles McColl DFC - POW
Navigator: Warrant Officer Leslie Leonard MacDonald - POW
Failed To Return

NV423, UB-H
Pilot: Warrant Officer N. P. Turner
Navigator: Warrant Officer G. F. Hamond

LZ407, UB-F
Pilot: Flying Officer W. G. Herbert
Navigator: Flight Sergeant J. W. Tucker

NV432, UB-D
Pilot: Flying Officer J. MacDonald
Navigator: Flight Lieutenant W. Bremner

NE444, UB-B
Pilot: Warrant Officer W. T. Furlong
Navigator: Flight Sergeant A. E. Williams

NT954, UB-A
Pilot: Flying Officer J. G. Cox
Navigator: Warrant Officer A. W. Ibbotson

NV424, UB-R
Pilot: Flying Officer C. J. Smith DFC
Navigator: Flying Officer M. P. Jackson

NV196, UB-V
Pilot: Warrant Officer Donald Ernest Mutimer - KIA (aged 28) - buried Haugesund (Rossebo) Var Frelsers Cemetery.
Navigator: Flight Sergeant John Douglas Blackshaw - KIA (aged 20) - buried Haugesund (Rossebo) Var Frelsers Cemetery.
Failed To Return

NV450, UB-X
Pilot: Flying Officer N. R. Spink, DFC (Awarded for actions during this battle)
Navigator: Flying Officer L. R. Clifford, DFC (Awarded for actions during this battle)

NE798, UB-Q
Pilot: Flying Officer C. G. Thompson DFC
Navigator: Warrant Officer I. M. Gordon

No. 489 Squadron RNZAF
Station: RAF Dallachy
Group: No. 18 Group
Command: Coastal Command
Aircraft: Bristol Beaufighter Mk.X

NE213, P6-H
Pilot: Warrant Officer J. Brightwell
Navigator: Warrant Officer E. Foy

LZ531, P6-K
Pilot: Flight Sergeant R. Priest
Navigator: Warrant Officer D. Ball

LZ538, P6-W
Pilot: Flight Lieutenant J. Brice GM
Navigator: Flying Officer R. Henson

9./JG 5
Airfield: Herdla
Staffel: 9
Gruppe: III
Geschwader: Jagdgeschwader 5

FW 190A-8, W.Nr. 732197, Weiß 10
Pilot: Feldwebel Rudolf Artner

Fw 190F-8, W.Nr. 581676, Weiß 12
Pilot: Fahnenjunker-Feldwebel Otto Leibfried - KIA (age 25) - buried Bergen-Solheim German War Cemetery
Aircraft Lost

Fw 190A-8, W.Nr._, Weiß 3
Pilot: Feldwebel Martin Ullmann

Fw 190A-8, W.Nr._, Weiß 7
Pilot: Fahnenjunker-Unteroffizier Heinrich Hellwig

Fw 190F-8, W.Nr. 931862, Weiß 1
Pilot: Unteroffizier Heinz Orlowski
Aircraft Lost

Fw 190A-8, W.Nr._, Weiß 11
Pilot: Unteroffizier Walter Opitz

Fw 190A-3, W.Nr._, Weiß 9
Pilot: Unteroffizier Gerhard Eisermann

Fw 190A-3, W.Nr._, Weiß 4
Pilot: Unteroffizier Siegfried Ballerstädt

Fw 190_, W.Nr._, _
Pilot: Oberfähnrich Georg Höhn

12./JG 5
Airfield: Herdla
Staffel: 12
Gruppe: III
Geschwader: Jagdgeschwader 5

Fw 190A-8, W.Nr. 732183, Blau 4
Pilot: Leutnant Rudolf Linz - KIA (aged 27) Posthumously awarded Knight’s Cross of the Iron Cross, buried Bergen-Solheim German War Cemetery
Aircraft Lost

Fw 190A-8, W.Nr. 732070, Blau 9
Pilot: Leutnant Karl-Heinz Koch
Aircraft Lost

Fw 190A-8, W.Nr. 350177, Blau 1
Pilot: Unteroffizier Herbert Schäfer
Aircraft Lost

Fw 190A-8, W.Nr. 732217, Blau 5
Pilot: Oberfeldwebel Heinz Birk

Fw 190A-8, W.Nr._, Blau 10
Pilot: Unteroffizier Julius Dolge

APPENDIX II - CLAIMS

Claims as recorded in official unit records as follows -

No. 65 Squadron RAF
Fw 190 destroyed - Flight Lieutenant Jimmy Butler
Fw 190 destroyed - Flying Officer William L. Black
Fw 190 damaged - Flight Lieutenant J. W. Foster
Fw 190 damaged - Flight Lieutenant G. C. L. Watt

No. 144 Squadron RAF
1 x Fw 190 destroyed
1 x Fw 190 damaged

NE832, PL-Q fired 50 rounds into a Fw 190 that was seen to dive away steeply.

No. 404 Squadron RCAF
Fw 190 destroyed - Flying Officer J. E. Nelson
Fw 190 damaged - Warrant Officer E. G. Gracie

No. 455 Squadron RAAF
1 x Fw 190 possibly damaged

9./JG5
Beaufighter - Feldwebel Rudolf Artner, 16:10
Beaufighter - Feldwebel Rudolf Artner, 16:13
Beaufighter - Unteroffizier Heinz Orlowski
Mustang - Unteroffizier Heinz Orlowski
Beaufighter - Unteroffizier Gerhard Eisermann
Beaufighter - Fahnenjunker-Unteroffizier Heinrich Hellwig
Beaufighter - Unteroffizier Walter Opitz

12./JG5
Beaufighter - Oberfeldwebel Heinz Birk, 16:08
Mustang - Leutnant Karl-Heinz Koch, 16:12
Beaufighter - Leutnant Rudolf Linz
Mustang - Leutnant Rudolf Linz

Luftwaffe records notably claim three times more Mustangs than were actually lost, as well as eight Beaufighters. RAF sources believed only two beaufighters were lost to fighters, with the rest destroyed by enemy flak. It may be that the parameters for judging a ‘kill’ were different within the Luftwaffe at this stage with severely damaged enemy aircraft assumed to not be able to make it back to a base some 300 miles away across the North Sea. It is a testament to the skills of the aircrew, and the sturdiness of the Beaufighter’s construction that so many did.

APPENDIX III - LOCATIONS OF INTEREST

Luftkampmuseum; Håjen, Slettehaug, 6817 Naustdal, Norway
https://haajen.no/luftkampmuseum/
A museum dedicated to the events of Black Friday, which contains many period artefacts including various aircraft parts and fragments raised from Førdefjord, as well as photographs and a documentary film.

Black Friday Memorial Forde airport, Bringeland, Norway
A grey granite memorial originally erected in Naustdal, it was later moved to Forde airport. It lists only the Allied dead and bears the inscription ‘Dei gav livet far vår fridom’ - They gave their lives for our freedom. A bronze plaque on the monument reads “Erected in gratitude 8.5.1985 by NROF Indre Sunnfjord in collaboration with the people in the villages around Førdefjorden”

Dallachy Strike Wing Memorial, Scotland; 19 Bogmoor Rd, Bogmoor, IV32 7PA, Scotland
A grey granite memorial next to the location of the Dallachy airbase commemorating the losses from the squadrons based there. Stretches of the concrete runways remain, and the control tower is still standing but closed-off to public access.

Herdla Museum; Herdla Fort, 5315, Herdla, Norway
https://herdlamuseum.museumvest.no/en/
Based near JG5’s airbase the museum has exhibitions covering WW2 operation in the area as well as the displayed wreck of ‘Gul 16’ a Fw190 raised from the sea where it ditched in 1943. http://www.maia.no/article-yellow-16

Fochabers Folk Museum & Heritage Centre, The High Street, Fochabers, Scotland
https://fochabers-heritage.co.uk/museum/
Various beaufighter related items including a navigator’s seat with bullet hole, rescued from a Norwegian fjord. A beaufighter veteran who visited the museum identified it as having been his seat and was able to pull up his shirt and match the position of the hole to his bullet wound.

Royal Air Force Museum London, Grahame Park Way, London, England
https://www.rafmuseum.org.uk/
Has the only fully restored Beaufighter TF.X in existence; presently painted in the colours of a Coastal Command beaufighter circa June 1944 with invasion stripes. No squadron codes, just serial RD253.

Military Aviation Museum, 1341 Princess Anne Road, Virginia Beach, Virginia, USA
https://www.militaryaviationmuseum.org/
Contains Rudolf Linz’s Fw190 A-8, ‘Blauen 4’, recovered from a mountainside in Norway in 1984 and subsequently fully restored as a static exhibit.

American Heritage Museum, 568 Main Street, Hudson, Massachusetts, USA
https://www.americanheritagemuseum.org/
This museum has Heinz Orlowski’s Fw190 F-8, ‘White 1’ on display. It was salvaged from its mountain crash-site in 1983. Orlowski visited his partially restored aircraft in 1994. It has been painstakingly restored over 25 years to flight worthiness, and is approaching its first flight.

APPENDIX IV - MISSION INSTALLATION

Choose either the Full Version (17 user skins) or the Minimal Version (4 user skins) and then drag the folder contents into your War Thunder root directory.
Note: The mission is designed to be played in the Realistic difficulty mode

Aircraft Requirements
These aircraft must be owned to play their respective versions of the mission:
Black Friday 1945 - Beaufighter Mk.X - Beaufighter Mk X
Black Friday 1945 - Fw 190A-8 - Fw 190 A-8
Black Friday 1945 - Mustang Mk.III - F-6C-10-NA

Minimal Version:
Beaufighter
WT Live // Camouflage by fenris
Fw 190
WT Live // Camouflage by __StrafeMike__
Mustang
WT Live // Camouflage by Dan_RAFBC
Warwick
WT Live // Camouflage by fenris

APPENDIX V - SOURCES

‘RAF Mustang and Thunderbolt Aces’, Andrew Thomas, Osprey (2010)
‘Beaufighter Squadrons in focus’, Simon Parry, Red Kite, (2002)
‘Bristol Beaufighter- The full Story’, John.F.Hamlin, Air-Britain (2022)
‘Bristol Beaufighter’, Jerry Scutts, The Crowood Press (2004)
http://www.luftwaffe.no/SIG/1945/Forde.html
https://discovery.nationalarchives.gov.uk/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Friday_(1945)
Buffalo Soldier - Canadian Aviation Historical Society
The Wartime Memories Project
https://rcaf404squadron.art.blog/2019/04/14/black-friday/
McNeill Life Stories Black Friday in Norway - McNeill Life Stories
https://www.jagdgeschwader5und7.de/
https://www.key.aero/article/dark-day-rafs-coastal-command
https://ww2aircraft.net/forum/threads/the-greatest-air-battle.15037/page-6
https://www.findagrave.com/
https://www.lordlieutenantmoray.co.uk/black-friday-memorial-service/
Youtube - HE FELL OUT OF THE SKY! The Unbelievable Survival of an Fw 190 Pilot and his aircraft restoration

APPENDIX VI - CREDITS

Mission Creation - @Dan_RAFBC
Mission Testing - @Dan_RAFBC and @fenris
Skins - @fenris, @StrafeMike and @Dan_RAFBC
Research - @Dan_RAFBC and @fenris
Mission Overview - @fenris
Screenshots - @Dan_RAFBC