RAF CONINGSBY THURSDAY 21 MAY 2015

Nicolson’s ‘Red devil’ personal emblem

On August 16, 1940 James Brindley Nicolson took off from Boscombe Down with other elements of 249 Squadron, to intercept a large German raid over the Southampton area. Below the cockpit, on the port side of the fuse- lage, his Mk.I Hawker Hurricane P3576 (‘GN-A’) car- ried his personal em-blem - a red devil on a white disc, ringed with what is believed to be, red and yel- low.

His outstanding heroism that day led Air Vice Marshal Keith Park, AOC No 11 Group, to recommend he be awarded the Victoria Cross, which he duly received at Buckingham Palace in November of the same year.Naturally, there was huge interest in the media and many newspapers the length and breadth of Britain ran the story, among them the Illustrated London News, who published a double page centre spread in their Novem-ber 30, 1940 edition. Dramatically dominated by a painting by noted war artist Bryan De Grineau, the piece was endorsed by a statement advising “…details were personally supplied by F/Lt. Nicolson.”There are no known surviving photographs of the emblem, to augment De Grineau’s illustration. However, it’s accuracy can be better assured from the knowledge of Nicolson’s known fastidiousness - a character trait that

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RAF CONINGSBY THURSDAY 21 MAY 2015

Tom Neil (author of ‘Gun Button To Fire’ and others) recalls caused some irritation among members of the squadron. Indeed, Jim Nicolson, a close relative of James, recalls that immediately after ‘Nick’ was shot down and bearing grievous injuries, he still gave the policeman who was taking down a telegram from him to the squadron, ‘a rocket’ for erroneously adding an ‘h’ to his surname. It is reasonable therefore, to conclude that Nicolson would not have ‘signed off’ on the painting and preliminary sketches without first personally confirming their veracity.The Illustrated London News edition was later the basis for the first known profile of the port side of P3576 and the red devil emblem, in an article published by the Souders-Earhart chapter of the International Plastic Mod-eller’s Society, sometime prior to 2000. Written by the late Doris Reeves, with artwork by Gary Davidson, this and the Illustrated London News, were the source material respected aviation historian, Andy Saunders em-ployed (circa 1986) in generating the painted image (produced by the late Michael Payne) now seen on the cabinet containing Nicolson’s uniform and ‘Mae West’ at the Tangmere Museum.The importance of the emblem to Nicolson is reflected in Jim’s recollection of a personal discussion with Muriel, that her husband had written a letter to her, some time prior to the engagement on 16 August, to tell her of the addition of the marking to his own aircraft.

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RAF CONINGSBY THURSDAY 21 MAY 2015

Whether Nicolson painted the emblem on his Hurricane or (as was other-wise normally the case) it was applied by ‘the squadron artist’, who was simply someone within the unit with an artistic bent, is not known at this time. However, thanks to Muriel Nicolson, Bryan De Grineau, Doris Reeves, Gary Davidson, Andy Saunders, Michael Payne, Jim Nicolson and Airfix Model World magazine (AMW), we have sufficient evidence to con-clude that the red devil, as depicted at Tangmere, is indeed, an accurate portrayal of James Nicolson’s personal emblem.

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