Profiles and Logos
The Fairey Battle was a single engined monoplane British light bomber designed and built by the Fairey Aviation Company during the mid 1930s for the Royal Air Force. The aircraft was powered by the Rolls Royce Merlin piston engine.
The aircraft was designed to Specification P.27/32 to replace biplane bombers then in use and to be capable of carrying 1,000lb of bombs over 1,000 miles. The specification was as an insurance policy in case heavier bombers were banned by the 1932 Geneva Disarmament Conference. The prototype first flew on 10th March 1936 with the first production aircraft flying in June 1937. The Battle was in effect obsolete by the start of the Second World War but remained in front line service with 10 Squadrons deployed to France in 1939 with initial missions to perform aerial reconnaissance of the Siegfried line where one Battle crew shot down a Bf109. However the aircraft was no match for German fighters and losses mounted which led to the a switch to night operations where losses reduced. The Squadrons returned to Britain by 15th June 1940.
#In six weeks of action 200 Battles had been lost. Whilst missions against shipping continued the Battle was relegated to secondary missions although it was used to great effect in East Africa. In total 2,201 aircraft were built, including 16 for Belgium.