Fairey Swordfish Colours and Markings Book Review

By Michael Benolkin

Review

Here's an example from a series being published by 4+/Mark I Ltd. The series is called Baker's Dozen and in this example we have an interesting selection of Fairey Swordfish (Stringbag) in a nice cross-section of subjects and time periods of service. This title has profiles and decals for 13 aircraft (hence the 'baker's dozen).

The subjects included in this title (and the associated decal sheet) include:

• Swordfish Mk.I, K6009, 822 Sqn, White 912, HMS Furious, 1938
• Swordfish Mk.I, L7672, 820 Sqn, White A4F, HMS Ark Royal, 1939
• Swordfish Mk.I, L9720, 820 Sqn, Grey 4A, HMS Ark Royal, 1941
• Swordfish Mk.I, P4048, 765 Sqn, Black Y8L, RNAS Lee-on-Solent, 1940 (floatplane)
• Swordfish Mk.I, V4448, 833 Sqn, Black B, Operation Torch, Gibralter, 1942
• Swordfish Mk.III, NF343, 119 Sqn, NH-Q, RAF Bricham Newton, 1945
• Swordfish Mk.III, NR944, RCAF Station Shearwater, Nova Scotia, Canada, 1946-47
• Swordfish Mk.III, NF399, Stn Flt, 912-AO, RNAS Arbroath, Scotland, 1948
• Swordfish Mk.II, LS454, 733 Sqn, RNAS Trincomalee, Sri Lanka, 1946

While there are 13 subjects on the decal sheet, I could only decipher the profiles for nine of them. The title is supposed to have one page of photos of the subject along with a good background summary of the aircraft whilst the other page has a full-color four-view profile for color and marking placement. Unfortunately in the sample we received, the pages were scrambled with duplicate background pages, duplicate profiles, and missing some subjects in the process.

Assuming that this is unique to my sample, these markings come in your choice of 1/48 and 1/72 scale and in this case (1/48) would be perfect for one or more of the Tamiya variants of the Stringbag kits.

Recommended!

My sincere thanks to Mark I Publications for this review sample!