Here’s a collection of photos that I’ve had. Came across them and more organizing my office this afternoon.
A little preamble. My Father-in-law enlisted on 12/8/41 and joined the Army Air Force. His Squadron trained in A-20/ P-70’s in Florida and he went overseas in mid-1942. They went to Tunisia in early 1943, where they (314 Squadron, 12th Air force) were equipped with radar equipped beaufighters.
He flew from Tunisia, Corsica, Sardinia and eventually they were based at Pontadero, Italy. here’s his, Miss billi, in front of the destroyed Piaggio works there.
In late 1944 they switched to P-61s.
On a mission to destroy a tunnel making train in the Brenner Pass, his plane took a hit in the cockpit from ground AA, he thinks a 20mm. The pilot was killed, he crawled forward and flew to the target and back to base. Wouldn’t bail out because the radar operator was in shock and not responding. Made a gear up landing in mud.
Here’s a shot while visiting his brother in Naples.
Have a good weekend. Comments welcome good bad or indiferent but do me a favor. Don’t use “quote” these files are big.
Had I seen these before finishing my 61, I think I’d have made this one happen! Always nice to have a personal (even if far removed) connection to a build.
That’s my mother-in-law on the nose art too! Of course she was really brunette, but when she got painted on she looked bald! So presto- blonde! Miss Billi III is a van conversion with all the bells and whistles that still goes to air shows, the old pilot is still going strong at 90.
In fact they exist- on his mantle! But the -61 is the old you-know-who’s, and I have an A in the stash I am planning to build soon, in 1/72 of course!
Along those lines, in 1945 he made friends with a guy who had been a metal shop owner before the war, his life reduced to ruins, daughter molested by Germans. This guy had a little forge set up where he made aluminum models in sand castings, using rubber recognition models as masters and casting with aircraft propeller aluminum. He’s got a bunch of them, but they are a bear to clean up. Some day. you’d be familiar with that as a jeweler, Frank.
I’ll dig around- the USAAF Beaufighter isn’t something I’ve every seen modeled besides by me. There’s a Polish outfit that makes a set of decals that include a couple; “Beaufighters in other services” or something like that. He doesn’t remember what colors they were, too busy climbing in and out.
I can only imagine that those little planes are a bear to clean up! Dealing with aluminum only makes it tougher.
Speaking of US Beaufighter decals, I have a set of 1/48 Cutting Edge Beaufighter decals with a 416 NFS, 12 AF USAF machine featured on it. Looks very similar to the AC in your photograph.
Did Cutting Edge give color callouts for the camo? I’ve pondered it for 20 years. Was it dark earth/ dark green? Was it desert colors? Obviously not US as we didn’t use camo in Europe, certainly not in 1943.
That sounds right. If you look at the first picture, the grey on top “bleeds” into the bottom, even though the green has a distinct demarkation. Right away they started losing aircraft, one problem was the British instrument light design. My guy retrofitted a B-25 system in his, which has a bulb on the control stick that shines on the dash. It was immediately adopted squadron wide. He liked the Beaufighter, because even though he wasn’t usually up, when he was they could all take turns at the stick and move around easily. Also stretch out full length on the floor.
In Tunisia they took every opportunity to go on “check” flights, up around 4,000 where the air was cool. Had those Bristols running sweetly.
I’ll look and see if I can find copies of pictures of “his” 109. He keeps them close to his chest.
