Does anyone know where I can find which aircraft a specific pilot flew? He was stationed aboard USS Essex as a pilot in VF-9 during WWII. I basically just need to know his aircraft number, markings, and color scheme. His name was LT(JG) Armistead B Smith. I can find info on him, the Essex, VF-9, and the Hellcat but nothing that lists pilots by squadron and aircraft. Please help.
Found this site. Smith’s name is in the list.
I checked my references last night and found a Kokobura publication, ‘U.S. Navy Aces’ that had some information on VF 9. I don’t know how much of this you already know, but here goes.
Smith was on his second tour with VF 9. He was not credited with any kills on the first tour. They reequiped with -3 Hellcats for the second tour. During that tour, he was credited with 6 kills, 5 Zeros and a Betty. On 16 Feb, 1944, during the second mission of the day, a bomber escort, Smith was credited with 3 Zeros. This appears to be his first kills.
Vf 9’s Hellcats were finished in the tricolor scheme, Sea Blue/ Intermediate Blue/ White. There was white shadow shading under the tail plane. Large plane number in white just ahead of the national insignia, which was surrounded in blue. The number was repeated in small numbers, at the top forward edge of the tail fin. At this time, there doesn’t appear to be any markings indicating the Essex. The squadron badge was on both sides of the fuselage, under the windscreen. It was a circle, with a cat on a cloud, about to throw what looks like a bottle. They didn’t know what the colors were of this emblem, but I would guess blue sky and a white cloud for sure.
This is the best I can do for you, at this time.
I’d just like to add that unlike Army fliers, Navy carrier pilots were rarely assigned their own aircraft. (This is one reason you see very little nose art). The CAG would be an exception in some cases, McCambell’s comes to mind. While an ace may have had a “personal” aircraft, odds are he didn’t always fly it. The confines of a carrier deck preventing the spotting of particular aircraft for particular pilots on a given mission. HTH, Gary
Actually, it wasn’t that unusually for Air Force and Marine aircraft to be flown by someone other than the person the a/c had been assigned to. If you were scheduled to fly a mission and your assigned a/c was down for maintenance, then you took an aircraft that was normally flown by someone was not scheduled to fly. It’s a question of generating proper number of aircraft for the mission.
Thanks Wayne
Thats helps a bunch. I found a photo of Smith standing in front of waht appears to be a Hellcat with the number 9 on the front of the wings. Now all I need to do is find some decals in 1/32 scale to model his bird.
Yeh what he said. I agree. Most army pilots were assigned a particular plane but this did not give them exclusive rights to this aircraft. Often that plane was not serviceable due to mechanical problems or that pilot may not have been assigned a paticular mission and his plane was needed to fill out a squadron that was short. There are plenty of instances where a pilot lost his favorite plane when it was being flown by someone else and the usally were not very happy when this happened. They were for the most part very superstitiuos. The only one who really managed to hang on to personal planes were squadon leaders or commanders. But even they still had to give up there favorite mounts sometimes. When trying to model a particular pilots plane it can be diffucult.