South African Air Force Harvard 7439
This aircraft started out as part of an order of aircraft for the RAF built during the 1941 – 1942 period. She started out life as USAAF serial number 41-33888 with manufacturer’s serial number 88-14722. She was handed over to the RAF in 1942 as serial number EX915 and was subsequently transferred to South Africa.
She arrived in Cape Town in January 1943 and was assembled at Youngsfield and (as determined from incomplete records) she was transferred to 22 Air School at Vereeniging. This may be incorrect because 22 AS were operating Hawker Hartebees and Miles Master aircraft at the time. However, the Master was reaching the end of it’s useful life so it is possible that she was sent there to replace one of the Masters. The biggest Harvard operator at this time was 25 AS at Standerton who had 115 Harvards on strength so it’s more that likely that she actually went there.
Just after the end of the war most of the Harvards were transferred to CFS Dunnottar and she certainly ended her SAAF days there.
She was sold to the Portuguese Air Force as serial number 1502 on 5th August 1969. A lot of these aircraft did serve either in Mozambique or Angola before independence but she wasn’t one of them because they were eventually all scrapped in situ and none of these were sent back to Portugal. She was one of those that actually went directly to Portugal and was used there by the PAF as basic and advanced trainer.
She was eventually sold in the UK as G-JUDI and has subsequently become G-TXAN.
The aircraft would have been converted for weapons training by the SAAF as they were used quite a lot for weapons training. I don’t recall ever having seen a Harvard equipped with machine guns under the wings but the original design did have one gun mounted on the right-hand side of the windscreen. Many Harvards still have the bump just ahead of the windscreen where the breech block fitted in.
The bomb racks (and later rocket rails) were definitely fitted by the SAAF in the late 50’s and early 60’s.
Many thanks to Deán Stassen for sourcing the above information