This is a follow up on Little Friends I wrote two months ago.

Autumn leaves in my backyard and colder weather leave me no other choice but to postpone using my Badger airbrush outdoors to finish up painting my Airfix 1/48 scale Me 109 and my Monogram North 1/48 scale American Harvard.

I will just have to wait for warmer temperature in May 2020…

In the meantime I will be adding more stories on my blogs as readers will continue to comment on posts I have written. This is how I had learned in September about a distant relative. Lieutenant Thomas Oscar Meteyer, my third cousin twice removed, is seen here sitting in the cockpit of his P-51B probably just after D-Day.

That information came from Peter Randall when I sent him this photo shared by Thomas Oscar Meteyer’s daughter. Peter wanted to know if I knew who were Lt. Thomas Meteyer’s crew. Looking at the photo, his crew chief’s name was written on the plane: S/Sgt J.A. Phillips.

Lt. Thomas Meteyer did not talk that much about the war to his four children. But there is one story his son Michael shared. It was on a newspaper clipping.

Learning about Lieutenant Meteyer I decided to buy two more model kits to add to my collection. First, the model kit of the first plane he flew in combat on February 28th, 1944.

Then the P-51B he flew all his other missions while he was with the 358th Fighter Squadron at Steeple Morden.

Lieutenant Thomas Oscar Meteyer’s service with the U.S. Army Air Corps will eventually be documented on this blog I created for his children and his grandchildren:

https://358thfightersquadron.wordpress.com/ 

I have also created this memorial:

http://www.americanairmuseum.com/person/212339

As a token of appreciation this is what his children sent me.

Which brings me to this…

With all I have as a backlog of model kits I had decided to build Eduard Hawker Tempest Mk V.

Opening the box and inspecting the parts this is what I had found.

The canopy was split in half!

I decided then to contact Eduard’s customer service. We’ll see what happens. While I am waiting for a reply I will start building this long overdue model kit I bought in January 2020.

Next time I will look at reviews of those who have tackled ICM He 111H-3 and then start enjoying my forgotten hobby again.