Fairey Battle - Survivors

Survivors

There are only five examples of the Fairey Battle held by various museums, but none of them is in flying condition.

• The best known survivor is L5343, displayed at the RAF Museum in Hendon. In July 1940, it was allocated to No. 98 RAF Squadron, after which it and other Battles were based at Kaldadarnes, Iceland for anti-invasion operations in support of British forces which had occupied the island in May 1940. L5343 was the first RAF aircraft to land on Icelandic soil, and crashed during subsequent operations. In 1972, the RAF embarked on a successful recovery operation to salvage the wreck and return it to the UK for restoration. The recovery complete, the museum has since begun a complete restoration of L5343 at the Michael Beetham Conservation Centre of the RAF Museum in Cosford, Shropshire, England. The conservation centre is only open to the public at occasional times throughout the year.

• Battle R3950 is part of the collection of the Royal Museum of the Armed Forces and of Military History, Brussels, Belgium. This aircraft spent much of its life in Canada. It was acquired by the Brussels museum in 1990 as they wished to hold an example of an aircraft that served with the Belgian Air Force in 1940.

• The wreck of another Battle was discovered in an Icelandic glacier in 1995, although there are no plans to restore it.

• The Canada Aviation and Space Museum holds a Battle T (marked as R7384/35), used to represent the contribution the aircraft made to aircrew training in the British Commonwealth Air Training Plan. R7384 was manufactured as a pilot trainer in 1940, and taken on strength by the RCAF in 1941. Converted to a turret-gunnery trainer in 1942, it was used until 1943, when it entered storage. After moving among several storage locations, the aircraft was transferred to the Canada Aviation Museum in 1964, and a final restoration programme was completed in the 1990s. During the mid-1960s, RCAF pilot Lynn Garrison acquired four Fairey Battles from farmyards in Alberta and Saskatchewan for his collection of historic aircraft in Calgary, Alberta. They have since disappeared from view. Although far from complete, another Canadian-based Battle trainer is currently being restored at the Commonwealth Air Training Plan Museum at Brandon, Manitoba.

• The South Australian Aviation Museum at Port Adelaide, South Australia is undertaking a restoration project using the remains of a Battle which was recovered from a tidal swamp near Port Pirie in South Australia.

• The Clyde North Aeronautical Preservation Group also has two unidentified and unrestored cockpit sections from Fairey Battles located in Wagga Wagga, Australia.

• The RAAF Museum at Point Cook, Victoria has an unidentified and unrestored cockpit section.