Handley Page History

Harrow Mk II 

- Ernie Lee

Kit No: 72116

Scale: 1/72

Type: Injection Moulded Plastic

Manufacturer: Valom Hannants/UMM-USA

By the early the Air Ministry had decided to send out tenders to design and build bomber monoplanes to replace the outdated biplanes. This included the Armstrong Whit worth Whitley, but they also ordered the Handley Page Harrow as a heavy bomber/transport plane. By the start of World War II it was really obsolete but it soldiered on until 1945 in various roles including the task of dropping aerial mines in the Luftwaffe bomber stream at night, and it actually downed six bombers.

The kit has decals for two aircraft, a machine of 420 Flight used in Operation Mutton, mine sowing, and one of 93 Squadron.

I chose to build the 420 Flight aircraft. Neither of these aircraft are easy to identify as they did not carry code letters and were only identified by the serial number.

With our backs to the wall we had little to defend us against the Luftwaffe night operations in 1941 so someone came up with the idea of filling the area in front of the bomber stream with aerial mines. Because of the poor performance of the Harrow the interception had to be undertaken head on. The aircraft were vectored in at 3,000ft above the German aircraft from ground control. The mines were then deployed, complete with parachute on a long cable. Each machine could carry 160 mines. Although this experiment was a partial success it was not continued and soon radar equipped Beaufighters were coming on stream. If you are modelling this variant, please note that to save weight all the guns were removed.