King & Country
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KING & COUTNRY DISPATCHES
January 2025
January 2025
Hi Guys,
First of all here’s hoping you had a happy, healthy and peaceful New Year! Here in Hong Kong it’s the best time of the year with cool, bright sunny days and just a little bit cooler in the evenings.
In addition to a great winter season we also get to celebrate New Year twice… Obviously we begin with the Western New Year on January 1 but then with the upcoming Chinese New Year at the end of this month which lasts for several days. And so, we get the best of both worlds, East and West, all in one great city on the coast of Southern China.
However, as you might expect, I’m not only wishing you the very best of the coming year but also taking this opportunity to introduce you to our latest King & Country releases and announce a whole big batch of retirals that includes some old favourites.
And so, let’s get this show on the road…
1. BEING RELEASED THIS MONTH…
A. ‘Hurricane Summer’
By June 1940, Britain was in a perilous situation. France had fallen… the British Army, or at least a large part of it, had escaped, by the skin of its teeth, back from Dunkirk having left behind almost all of its transport, armour and artillery behind.
Virtually the whole of Western Europe, from northern Norway down to the southern borders between France and Spain now lay under the Nazi jackboot! Britain’s stood defiantly alone.
Hitler and his generals now looked across the English Channel and began to plan an invasion to which they gave the name… ‘Operation Sealion’. At the same time they recognized that two major obstacles stood in their way – The Royal Navy and the Royal Air Force. At the time, Britain possessed the largest and most powerful navy in the world… definitely a hard nut to crack!
The British Air Force by comparison was much smaller and had already suffered at the hands of the Luftwaffe in France.
Hitler’s Luftwaffe chief, Reichsmarschal Herman Goering confidently assured the Fuhrer that his all-conquering fighter pilots and bomber crews could and would ‘sweep the Royal Air Force from the skies’ in just a few weeks before turning their full attention towards the British fleet.
What Goering and his Luftwaffe failed to understand was that Britain possessed a growing band of fighter pilots from all over its small island and many others from around its far-flung Empire and elsewhere.
The British also had two superb modern, mono wing fighter aircraft that became legendary... The swift, sleek ‘Supermarine Spitfire’ and the rugged, hard-working ‘Hawker Hurricane’.
The Hawker Hurricane has long been a favourite of K&C Royal Air Force collectors.
Over the years we have produced no less than 4 different versions of this classic British ‘Warbird’ in mixed-media (polystone, resin and white metal) as well as a number of all-wood, hand-painted special edition Hurricanes for individual collectors.
These two latest mixed-media Hawker Hurricanes are both brand-new sculpts with much more detail and painted to represent two different but equally famous aircraft flown by two of the best known RAF ‘aces’ of The Battle of Britain… Squadron Leaders Douglas Bader and Robert Stanford-Tuck.
RAF093 ‘Sqdn. Ldr. Douglas Bader’s Hawker Hurricane’
Douglas Bader DSO & Bar, DFC & Bar (1910-1982) was a Royal Air Force flying ace during WW2. He was credited with 22 aerial victories, four ‘shared’ victories, six ‘probables’ and 11 enemy aircraft ‘damaged’.
He joined the RAF in 1928 and was commissioned in 1930. In December 1931, while attempting a low-flying aerobatic stunt he crashed his Bristol Bulldog biplane and lost the lower parts of both legs. Despite being on the brink of death he recovered and retook his flight training and passed all of his flight checks however the RAF still retired him on medical grounds.
Upon the outbreak of war in September 1939 Bader immediately reapplied to the RAF to rejoin and, after some difficulties, was accepted for operational flying duties as a fighter pilot.
He scored his first ‘victories’ while flying over Dunkirk during the Battle of France in 1940. He then took part in the Battle of Britain being promoted to Squadron Leader and put in command of No. 242 Squadron of RAF Fighter Command, a unit made up of mostly Canadian pilots.
In August 1941, Bader’s aircraft was in collision with an enemy Messerschmitt 109 and he had to bale out over occupied France and was soon captured.
It was then he met for the first time and was befriended by the prominent German air ace, Adolf Galland. After being ‘wined and dined’ by his Luftwaffe captors at their airfield he was sent to the first of several Prisoner of War camps where, despite his disability, he made a number of failed escape attempts.
Eventually he was sent to the ‘bad boys’ camp at the infamous Colditz Castle where he remained until liberation by the U.S Army in April 1945.
Douglas Bader left the RAF in early 1946 and resumed a flying career in private industry with the giant Shell BP company. During the 1950s a best-selling biography and a block-busting film, ‘REACH FOR THE SKY’ were released and were great successes.
For the rest of his life Bader campaigned for disabled people especially the young. In 1976 he was knighted by Queen ElizabethⅡ for his many years of service. He also continued to fly until ill health forced him to stop in 1979. Sir Douglas Bader passed away in 1982.
RAF099 ‘Sqdn. Ldr. Robert Stanford – Tuck’s’ Hawker Hurricane’
Robert Stanford Tuck DSO, DFC & Two Bars, AFC (1916-1987) was another British fighter pilot during WW2 who joined the Royal Air Force in 1935 and saw his first combat over France in mid 1940. His success in action saw him soon promoted to command No. 257 Squadron in September 1940. This particular Hurricane squadron was called ‘The Burma Squadron’ because all of its aircraft had been paid for by the Colonial Government of Burma at the beginning of the war.
The King & Country version of Stanford-Tuck’s aircraft has the squadron codes ‘DTA’ on both sides of the fuselage plus a long row of ‘swastikas’ on the port side under the cockpit while on the starboard side below the cockpit is the painted flag of British administered ‘Burma’.
A standing figure ‘Bob’ Stanford-Tuck seen next to the 1:30 scale model is also included.
By July 1941 Stanford-Tuck was promoted, once more, to acting Wing Commander and was leading fighter sweeps over norther France. It was there, in late January 1942, when he was shot down by a local German flak unit and forced to crash-land near Boulogne. He was soon captured by German troops and sent to the famous Stalag Luft Ⅲ in Poland where he took part in some of the early preparatory stages of what became known as ‘The Great Escape’.
In February 1945, Stanford-Tuck and a Polish pilot officer managed to escape from a ‘forced-march’ as the Germans retreated westwards just ahead of the powerful Red Army. The two remained hidden in an isolated and deserted farm building before surrendering to some advancing, front-line Russians. Several months later they finally, as the war had finished, boarded a ship heading for Southampton in the UK and… freedom.
During his wartime flying career before being shot down, Bob Stanford-Tuck’s score card had him with 27 ‘kills’, two ‘shared’ with six ‘probables’ and another six ‘damaged’.
LATER LIFE
After RAF service, Bob Stanford-Tuck flew as a ‘Test Pilot’ on the English Electric ‘Canberra’ jet fighter bomber during the 1950s.Much later, in 1969 he was one of the ‘technical advisers’ on the epic “Battle of Britain” film alongside an old wartime opponent who had become a cherished peacetime friend, Adolph Galland. Both men very much enjoyed each other’s company with Stanford-Tuck becoming godfather to Adolph Galland’s son Hubertus.
Robert Stanford – Tuck died on 5 May 1987 at the age of 70.
Available: Mid January
Special Note: Both of these new Hawker Hurricanes include a standing pilot representing the actual flyer of each aircraft. In addition, each model comes in a handsome, full-colour presentation box with just 200 pieces of each aircraft being produced.
Extra Note: A brand-new K&C sculpt of a 1:30 scale Supermarine Spitfire MK. Ⅱ is also in development for release later in 2025.
Give that man a cigar 
