December 7, 1941 I’ll assume we all know that date! Despite all the should’ves and could’ves, the Japanese achieved complete surprise against the US Navy base at Pearl Harbor and the surrounding military installations on Oahu, Hawaii. Most American air power, 188 aircraft across all service branches, was destroyed on the ground. Another 159 planes […]
Curtiss P-40B Warhawk
Great review by the son of a Tempest pilot
https://www.scalemodellingnow.com/hnaircraft-eduard-tempest-mkv-series2
Little did I know that a year later I would be buying it.
I was getting a little desperate lately since this model kit I had ordered was late.
I should have bought it years ago when it was readily available. Why I did not buy it then I will never know. Pierre Clostermann was my war hero when as a teenager I had read his book.
Buying Eduard Tempest would not have been an impulse buying. Last month I found it was still available from Model Hobbies in the U.K. I did not hesitate a second and ordered it. But it was late and stuck somewhere until this morning when I got notified that it was…
I was a bit apprehensive since my last order from Model Hobbies was left outside the door by the postperson. Anyone could have taken it…
So I quickly went to my mailbox down the street and sure enough the precious parcel was there.
I don’t intend to build it right away. This is why I bought the Weekend edition also to get some building experience before tackling the ProfiPack edition.
I finally found what I was looking for!
I found these model pads made by Eduard to display some of my model airplanes…
They are all in 1/48 scale.
I bought three of these…
And one each for these.
What I have also found is a great online store for my addiction.
What I bought myself as a Father’s Day gift not knowing how great it would be…
Eduard has not disappointed with respect to the number of different boxings of its new 1/48 North American P-51D Mustang that have been released so far, nor has it been shy about announcing future boxings of the kit. So far Eduard has released a Limited Edition “Chattanooga Choo Choo” P-51D-5 (with the swayback fillet) boxing; […]
via Kit News: Eduard’s Next Release of Its 1/48 North American P-51D Mustang — Iwo Jima Models
Happy 4th of July to all my American friends, old and new!
My Forgotten Hobby III will be pausing for this summer unless I decide otherwise.
I have started reading Feux du ciel a second time around. The last time I had read it was in 1965. The Bataan chapter was the chapter that had always captivated me especially with the image of two P-40s etched in my mind.
This is an excerpt from the book (page 52)…
C’est la fin du 24th Interceptor Command. Les quatre derniers Curtiss P-40 de Bataan sont restés dans cette mission.
Le 9 avril, les rares survivants des forces armées américaines de la péninsule capitulaient. Auparavant, Mac Arthur (sic) avait fait évacuer à Mindoro, dans le vieux Bellanca, le capitaine Dyess qui devait survivre aux blessures des cinq balles de 7 mm qui I’avaient atteint, pour recevoir des mains mêmes du Président Roosevelt, la Médaille d’honneur du Congrès.
Translation
This is the end of the 24th Interceptor Command. The last four Curtiss P-40s from Bataan were lost on this mission.
On April 9th, the few survivors of the peninsula’s U.S. Armed Forces surrendered. Earlier, MacArthur had evacuated Captain Dyess to Mindoro, in an old Bellanca. He had survived wounds from the five 7 mm bullets that had strucked him. He received the Congressional Medal of Honor from the very hands of President Roosevelt.
In 1965 that’s what I had read and there was no Internet to know more. Now I was more curious than ever to learn more about what had happened to Captain Dyess after he was evacuated in an old Bellanca.
However…
Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_E._Dyess
When the Bataan Peninsula fell to the Japanese, Dyess, as commanding officer, refused to abandon those of his squadron who could not be evacuated. He gave his airplane (“Kibosh”) to another fighter pilot, Lieutenant I.B. “Jack” Donaldson, for last bombing run on April 9, after which Jack was ordered to fly it to Cebu, where he crash landed. Dyess also supervised the evacuation of Philippine Army Colonel Carlos Romulo, a close friend of General Douglas MacArthur, who would survive the war and would later serve as President of the United Nations General Assembly.
Captain Dyess refused to abandon those of his squadron who could not be evacuated. I guess this makes him more than just a hero.
On the 4th of July, 2020 My Forgotten Hobby III wishes to remember Captain William E. Dyess.
The Dyess Story, first published in 1944, is the moving World War II account of William Dyess (1916-1943), a US Army Air Force pilot who was captured by the Japanese in the fall of the Philippines. Dyess then took part in the infamous Bataan Death March, and was a POW at Camps Cabanatuan and O’Donnell before his transfer and eventual escape from the Davao Penal Colony on Mindanao. His horrific story, one of the first to be published in the U.S. during the war, shocked and angered the nation. Illustrated with maps and photographs. Sadly, on December 22, 1943, Dyess was killed in a training accident in California while testing a P-38 fighter; he was only 27 at the time.
More reading about him here:
https://warfarehistorynetwork.com/2017/07/17/hero-to-the-end-airman-ed-dyess-on-the-philippines/
More here:
Excerpt
Eventually, Dyess was transferred to a prison in Davao, 650 miles south on Mindanao. From there, he led the escape of nine other American and Filipino POWs, the largest such escape in the Pacific Theater during World War II. For months he evaded captured, finally returned to safety in July 1943.
When Dyess returned to the United States, his story was kept secret. No one wanted to risk offending the Japanese, the calculation being they would treat American prisoners even worse.
It was only after Dyess was killed that his story was released. On Dec. 22, 1943, the P-38 he was flying over Burbank, Calif. lost power to an engine. While he could have abandoned his aircraft and parachuted to safety, it would have meant the airplane crashing into a home, possibly killing those on the ground.
Instead, he flew the plane into a vacant lot where he died on impact.
Very informative post about the Black Window.
https://planedave.net/2020/07/03/northrup-p-61b-black-widow/
About a Wildcat and the pilot who flew it
While I kept searching for more and more information on VF-5 and on these mostly unsung heroes seen on the above picture shared by Tom Harmer, the son of Richard “Chick” Harmer, I stumbled upon this Website which will guide me for my next project on My Forgotten Hobby.
This is the link : http://www.daveswarbirds.com/cactus/cactus.htm
This is the introduction written by the author.
This site is dedicated to those men who helped defend the skies over the island of Guadalcanal during the period August 1942 through November 1942.
You might wonder why a website has been made just for this subject. It started merely as an exercise in web page development, but soon became a labor of love. I had just finished reading the book “Fighter Squadron over Guadalcanal” by Max Brand, and I found myself thinking the same thoughts that I had had when I had read “The…
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My Forgotten Hobby III 