PYND48047 PYN-up TIDAL WAVE B-24D Nose Art #4

Description

Nose art and special markings for SIX B-24D veterans of TIDAL WAVE!

• B-24D-CO 41-11825 Hail Columbia, 98^th Bomb Group/344^th Bomb Squadron. JOHN “KILLER” KANE MEDAL OF HONOR AIRCRAFT – Led minimally successful 98^th attack on Target White IV (Astra Romana (most important refinery in Romania)/Phoenix Orion). Carried the heaviest nose armament of any TIDAL WAVE aircraft; details included in the instruction booklet. Crashlanded on Cyprus after the attack.
• B-24D-55-CO The Sandman, 98^th Bomb Group, 345^th Bomb Squadron, flown by Bob Sternfels to Ploesti and the subject of several of the most famous attack photos to survive the mission. The artwork was different on each side of the nose and is faithfully reproduced in this decal set.
• B-24D-CO 41-11840 The Witch, 98^th Bomb Group, 343^rd Bomb Squadron. This ship was shot down over Bulgaria and the surviving crewmembers made POWs. The Witch also had one of the most remarkable fuselage national insignia variations of all TW aircraft. The instruction booklet also tells the unexpected story of the serial number/Radio Call Number painted on the fins.
• B-24D-1-CO Black Jack, 98^th Bomb Group, 415^th Bomb Squadron. The nose art was similar but with important differences on each side of the nose. This ship was one of the many 98^th planes to carry strike cameras, but none of the photos were provided to the mission analysts. BJ survived the mission.
• B-24D-5-CO 41-23795 Sneezy, 98^th Bomb Group, 344^th Bomb Squadron. One of the “Snow White Squadron” ships, Sneezy was particularly interesting because she’d earlier been named Miss Julie and the remnants of the earlier nose art were still clearly visible on the left side nose. So named, she was one of several 9^th Air Force B-24Ds (including Gump the Sniffer, Boiler Maker II, and others) pulled off combat missions to be fitted with SCR-521 sea search radar to look for U-Boats in the Mediterranean. The SCR-521 was not successful and 9AF lobbied for months for the sniffers to be returned to combat duty. When 795 came back to the 98^th BG she was assigned to the 344^th Snow White squadron and renamed Sneezy. All SCR-521 equipment was removed except for one tiny antenna on the left side nose. The former antenna mounting locations were plated over and sprayed with a much lighter sand color. Most interesting, many of the sniffer ships had an extra set of scanning windows cut in the lower fuselage at the “Bendix turret” location, although of course the unworkable Bendix bottom turrets were fitted to only the first few B-24D-COs and removed from them soon after entering service anyway. The turret well remained, skinned over on the exterior, on all B-24Ds up through about Block 85 when the Sperry ball turrets began to be installed. The SCR-521 operator’s position was in this location, which is why the extra scanning windows were often added to the sniffers.
• B-24D-80-CO 42-40617 José Carioca was assigned to the 93^rd Bomb Group, 409^th Bomb Squadron. Gigantic, interesting nose art aside, José was an important member of the TIDAL WAVE attacking force because her crash into the women’s wing of the Ploesti Penitentiary caused nearly ¾ of the total number of Romanian fatalities that occurred during the attack. To the Romanians’ credit, they understood the flaming José’s crash into the penitentiary was due to her being shot down and not aggressive offensive action. Also one of the least-photo-documented ships, we could not have completed the artwork for this ship without the help of 93^rd BG historian Don Morrison and my friend Joe Gonzalez.