During my research in the National Archives for more material on the Ploesti, Romania, oil refineries low-level bombing mission, I came across an original 8″ x 10″ print of this photo of Super-Chief. It’s been published in books and on websites before, but I’m offering it here in significantly higher resolution than ever before available.
(Click to enlarge)
This bird has always been a favorite of mine. The artwork is exceptionally well done, and of course that PB4Y-2 Privateer slab-sided fuselage provided a wonderful canvas for huge paintings. There’s not a lot of information about this particular Privateer except that she was based at Palawan in the Philippine Islands from May to July 1945. Her unit, VPB-106, was engaged in long range patrol and low level attacks on Japanese coastal shipping in the Philippines area.
FYI, here’s the 1/48 PYN-up Decals set we created for this ship. I have a few still available.
PYND48022 PB4Y-2 Water Nymphs #1. PB4Y-2, 59501, with gigantic “Punkie” nose art, #501, of VPB-109, Palawan, Okinawa, and Iwo Jima, June-August 1945; PB4Y-2, with huge “The Super-chief/Lex Loci: nose art, of VPB-106, Westbrook Field, Palawan, Philippine Islands, May-July 1945. A special and VERY cool bonus is the machine-gun-toting cherub artwork painted on a Privateer port side .50 caliber gun turret blister. We have no idea which ship this was painted on, but the artwork is too cool to ignore, so I’m giving it to you as a bonus! Note this decal set does not include national insignia; see the B-24 standard insignia decal set listed at the bottom for markings applicable to these planes.
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While this page does not include photos specific to my second PYN-up Decals PB4Y-2 decal set, I’m listing it here for your information.
PYND48024 PYN-up Decals PB4Y-2 Water Nymphs #2. PB4Y-2, 59582, Miss Sea-ducer, R582, Lt Bronstein, VPB-116, Iwo Jima, March-June 1945; PB4Y-2, 59505, Redwing, X505, , VPB-106, West Field, Tinian, and Westbrook Field, Palawan, Philippine Islands, March-May 1945. Note this decal set does not include national insignia; see the B-24 standard insignia decal set listed at the bottom for markings applicable to these planes.
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B-24/PB4Y National Insignia – September 1943 to 1947. This set includes the late war national insignia applied to B-24s, PB4Y-1s, and PB4Y-2s, including the 45″ fuselage and wing US national insignia (stars & bars) in Insignia Blue and Insignia White applied to nearly all B-24s and the huge 65″ fuselage stars applied to the early Willow Run built B-24Hs. Since the 8th Air Force (and some factories at certain times) painted out the white in the star (or star-and-bar) with light gray paint to reduce visibility, we’ve included light gray overlay decals in case your model requires them. In fact, many photos exist showing natural metal Liberators with grayed out national insignia (kind of defeats the purpose, but regulations are regulation!) We’ve also included a nice selection of Hamilton Standard prop logos. Finally, don’t forget that you’ll need national insignia for the 1/48 PYN-up Decals sets, which do not include them.