On the morning of April 18th 1943, 18 P-38G Lightnings of the 339th FS out of Henderson Field, lead by Major John Mitchell, took off to intercept Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto, the mastermind behind Pearl Harbor, who was on a troop moral boosting trip through the Solomons. Four days earlier American intell broke the Japanese code informing them of Yamamoto’s location, route and schedule. He was notoriously punctual which made the mission feasible. The intercept location was 425 miles away from Henderson Field and P-38 Lightnings, with oversized drop tanks, were the only plane with the range. There were 4 attack planes for the bombers and the remaining fighters, to include Mitchell, were to keep the likely escorting A6M Zeros at bay.
After flying over open water just above the waves to avoid being detected, They found Yamamoto’s #323 Betty Bomber near Bougainville. A short time later he was sent down in flames in the jungle. History would dictate that Rex Barber and Thomas Lanphier each shared in the victory, but who was really responsible has been debated for years. There were no gun cameras in these P-38 to verify each pilots accounts of the incident. Initially Lanphier got sole credit for the kill then evidence, to include examining the wreckage, and a surviving witness (in the second bomber that was splashed in the drink) showed that Barber’s account was more accurate. Both men insisted to their dying day that they fired the shots that brought down Yamamoto. Barber was eventually given half credit.
In my opinion it was a team effort and all of those brave men should get credit omehow, but we all know that’s not how it works. Mitchell said there was a “1000 to 1” chance of it being successful.
Here is my tribute to those brave men. I recently got my hands on the recent Eduard P-38 Early Lightning Edition which is a reboxing of the old Academy kit. The draw is that it been “Profipacked” with all of their goodies, to include lots of resin, PE, masks and a sweet decal sheet. I still have no idea why they went to all the trouble to create all this resin and not just mold a new kit of this iconic fighter, perhaps to the standard of the Spitfire MK. IX.
I have already built Barber’s ride for the mission, “Miss Virginia”, so now I’m going to have a crack at Lanphier’s mount, #122 “Phobe”. I have the Hasegawa “Bougainville” Edition that supplies decals for the attack group which makes this project a reality. I’m surprised these 339th heroes’ planes haven’t been addressed by the decal companies yet. There seems to be plenty of visual documentation out there…like this…
I started with the resin cockpit. All I can say is WOW, what a beauty! The seat and radio deck are works of art. Certainly one of the best I’ve ever seen. The only issue I see is the wrong steering wheel for a G model. It was and actual half steering wheel as opposed to the later yoke style. I horked the wheel out of the Bougainville kit. Here it is after a dusting of Alclad Grey primer.
Eduard instructs you to remove the canvass instrument panel coaming. I suppose they want you to see their snazzy PE instrument panel. This was often done on the real thing in the field, so I sliced it out with an exacto (sorry no picture, pretty self explanatory…[;)]
I painted the cockpit Gunze Interior Green and did my usual cockpit painting. Their PE is very nice as well, but I found it weird that the seatbelts go through the seat instead of over the bar. I don’t know if I like this or not. Here it is after a Detailer wash and Testor’s Dull Coat.
The fun part will be sandwiching this guy into the airframe. I hope I sanded it down enough. We’ll find out shortly…
