BRISTOL BEAUFIGHTER 65
BLACK WINGS
N
ot long after they had
arrived at RAF Station
Banff to join 404 Squadron
(RCAF), Flg Off Bundy and
his NCO navigator, Flt Sgt (later
Pilot Officer) Wright, together
with another newly arrived
crew were “declared fit for ops”
on October 8, 1944. Two days
later the crews were in the airhoning their formation flying
skills; a continuation of their
experience at 132 (Coastal) OTU,
East Fortune, forged the bonds,
making for effective combat-ready
Beaufighter strike teams.
One week later, on the 15th,
Bundy and Wright flew the first
of many successful Beaufighter
sorties as one of 12 404 SquadronTF.Xs that contributed to a ‘wing
effort’ of 38 similar machines. On
this occasion they met the enemy,
a tanker and its Kriegsmarine
escort vessel, in open water
east of the Naze (southern tip
of Norway) well southeast of
their usual hunting grounds
along that country’s southwest
coast. Bundy fired his load of
eight rockets into the tanker and
although his Beaufighter’s cannon
malfunctioned, the squadron
diarist noted that they “gave a
good account of themselves.”
By the end of the month Bundy
and Wright had completed four
more operational trips, the lastof which was made after the
squadron had moved from Banff
to Dallachy. The crew continued
to show its mettle through to
the close of the Squadron’s
Beaufighter period at the end of
March 1945, flying the full range
of mission profiles- from full wing
efforts to lone reconnaissance
patrols by day and night. Most
of April was taken up with
conversion to the Mosquito FB.VI
at Banff, where the squadron
became operational on the type
later that month, and served for
the remainder of the war as part
of the Banff Strike Wing.Allan Selwyn Bundy was a Canadian
who flew Beaufighters and Mosquitos
in Scotland; he was most probably the
first black combat pilot in the RCAF
Beaufighter TF.X NE800/EE-N of 404 Squadron, as flown by Flg Off Bundy on his first operational sortie. Although it came to the Squadron from 46 MU on May 7, 1944,
the aircraft appears just five times in the Operational Records Book (ORB) prior to Bundy’s first operational ‘hop’ in October. Presumably it was held in reserve or used for
training for much of its earlier life. Still she could make one claim to fame during those times; her Form 78 shows two ROS/CRO (repaired on site by the civilian repair
organisation) entries through the summer and a return to the squadron on September 1. The cause of the second of these was most certainly flak damage received while in
action with three-tour veteran Wg Cdr Gatward DSO, DFC at the controls, on his final Beaufighter sortie as 404’s CO. Returning to the squadron in September, she may have
then been held in reserve, or used exclusively for practice and training sorties (which are not detailed in the ORB) until the second week of October, after which Bundy and
Wright were her most frequent crew. Bundy flew at least 23 operational sorties in this aircraft, most of those with Wright as navigator.Late-production Beaufighter TF.X RD421/EO-V provides the stage for a March 1945 official photo of the aircrew and non-flying officers of 404 Squadron at Dallachy, Scotland.
The photo has been cropped to show Flg Off Bundy (next to the starboard engine) and his navigator Plt Off Wright (directly under the root of the port propeller’s innermost blade).
This crew flew its final operational Beaufighter sortie in this aircraft on 26 March 1945, as part of a four-ship midnight rover. Note the weathered finish of the nose cap, which was
from an older Beaufighter. (Reeve [Aljoe] family collection)65_Bundy.CC.indd 65 19/03/2015 15:24