So I was really happy with myself for having dug-up a series of old WW2-era photographs from Asahigraph magazine of this ultra-colorful P-40E that was captured by the Japanese Army in the Philippines. Evidently in mirroring the famous Flying Tigers, its American crew painted the entire nose - from the spinner to the cockpit - in tiger-like flaming stripes and toothed tiger mouth!
What’s especially neat is that when the Japanese captured it intact, they liked the paint job so much they left it as it was and painted Japanese hinomarus over the US insignia - and flew it that way.
I have an offer you someone: Build this aircraft in any scale, in either US Army A/C markings or Japanese markings - and I’ll send them a free signed and numbered limited edition print that I’ve produced of it. Hand it on a wall or use it as a base - whatever you want! But it’s my freebie to whoever builds this bird!
It so happens, I have a P-40E that is nearing paint stage. I was going to do in another scheme, but that one doesn’t look too hard to pull off. I’ll give it a shot.
I don’t see any other way to paint the nose than by brush… At least the mottling… The base color could be sprayed, I reckon… Right now, I’m playing around with it in oils… Using a P-38 hulk I got…
In the field it was surely a base of yellow, overbrushed with red/orange. The shark mouth hand painted, of course. Replicating that in 1/38 will be a different thing, though.
I wont be anywhere near a “soon” completion… mine isnt as far along as I thought. But I’ll pester it until I get there. I feel motivated on this one.
Top: Our P-40E in the markings as applied after the Japanese Army captured and painted-over the US insignia (but not the nose art).
Bottom: Our P-40 in Japanese hands but still in its original US livery.
I have more photos of this specific a/c on my website: http://colesaircraft.com/1-09-p40e.html They’re not all the best quality - having been printed in an old Japanese Asahigraph magazine from 1943, but they’ll help.
MORE HISTORY:
This a/c was reportedly one of several P-40Es smuggled into the Philippines after the Japanese invasion of Dec. 1941 - through the Naval blockade. American crews painted it to emulate the already-by-then famous Flying Tigers. Obviously it fell into Japanese hands not long after. In the pictures on my website, you can see the Allied crews who were forced by the Japanese Army to ‘ground school’ them on the aircraft type - as they were certainly not familiar with it at the time.
I’m thrilled to see all the interest in building this bird!
What I’ll do is - if folks would like to send me in-progress pictures, I’ll post them online in a special page. It would be neat to see several people from around the world building the same airplane in various scales - both in US and Japanese markings.
I’ve actually painted the nose about half a dozen times with oils & a brush, Yellow Ochre being the base color with a mix of that and Burnt Umber for the feathery parts… The long looonnnggg drying time of the oils (coupled with repated dissatisfaction of results) is what took me so long to get to this point… The topside is painted in Tamiya Japanese Army Green (I used the panting for color refs) and the bottom is Testor’s MM Camouflage Grey.
I’m not really happy with the shark-mouth decal, but it’s the one I had closest to the shape depicted, although I’ll have to remove the blue area from between the “teeth” (either by painting over with red or cutting it out) and hand-paint the “eyes”… The hinomarus are from an old Arii decal sheet that I’ve had since the early 90s. The sheet hadn’t been stored properly, being left in a desk drawer that was in a humid basement for years. The paper had curled into a U-shape and had this “crystalized” look around the decals, but luckily I was able to save them by spraying them with Testor’s Decal Bonder (I love that stuff!). It’s saved many an old decal sheet for me and works (IMHO) much better than just spraying a clear gloss over them to keep them from slivering and breaking into a bazillion pieces…
Anyway, that’s the story so far and I’ll be working on it more during the upcoming week…
I believe that this aircraft probably came from a New Guinea P-40 squadron as the markings don’t fit the timeline for the Philippines. Aircraft staged to Mindanao from Australia for attacks on Luzon until about mid-April 1942. Gen. Wainwright surrendered the Philippines on May 6. Note the one photo showing the US markings. The white star has the red center painted out but it faintly shows through. The AAF directed that the red center be removed on May 12. The Navy followed suit on May 15. It was done very quickly as evidenced by photos of the Battle of Midway show. So this P-40 was captured after May 12, 1942.
waiting on the forums to settle down and run slower this weekend…