Ole Cock 56th Fighter Group 1/72 P47 Thunderbolt my test bed practice

Donavon Smith Ole Cock razor back olive drab sun bleached over neutral grey red nose band no tail colour

Ive tried to be as correct as I can remember but I don't know it all others know far more than me but here is my attempt with dates and details but quick look towards Roger Freemans Books and Peter randall web site littlefriends.co.uk and his books with Nigel Julian 56thFighterGroup.com on 8th AF and 56thFG confirms the dates mandates where issued and I also used Kent D Millers two books Ace DATA and Group DATA I have worked from that so most of the details down below I have learned this week its been good fun for me and I may have made a few mistakes writing up

Im lucky in that I had the chance to crew a real P51 Mustang at Duxford 20 or so years ago and during my time I had the good fortune to have meet a lot of the book authors historians and Pilots so where I could still ask for help I did

P47 D-11 RE 42-75410 HV M bar Ole Cock 61st fighter sqdn 56th fighter group no idea when it was delivered to 56th I don't know the manufacturing block delivery to theatre and depot Warton BAD2 dates but it was at group during the summer of 1943 going by Donavon claims as we have a photo of it in original factory finish White ETO ID bands and White nose cowling with out finding any other reference to Donavon flying other T Bolts which I'm sure he may have done I'm basing my guess that 410 was around on base in July 1943 again block manufacturing numbers will prove that wrong or right

The donor model I used was a D-22 with wing shackles not D-11 with out them also the front canopy screen shows no air inlets on the cheep model I'm using another issues I noticed due to wrong mark was having to use the medium sized star bar when I believe it would have had over sized star bar under both sides or a combination of oversized one side and on other side standard star bar

Field modified with group markings retaining factory Olive drab over neutral grey but with white ETO ID bands over sprayed

RED ID band to nose was added in feb 1944 but this wasn't widely used by 8th AF UNTILL march 1944

The 8th AF issued a mandate for all 15 FG sqadrons to use a colour as ID aid but the 56thFG had these in place earlier in feb 1944 with each sqdn noses painted from factory ETO White to red and then for 61st, yellow for 62nd and blue nose for 63rd that changed in march to all sqdn having red noses and the use from that point of rudder colours for ID aid red for 61st yellow for 62nd and blue for 63rd dating the model paint scheme to between Feb and March 1944

But a deeper look shows this AC was lost on 8th march mission to Berlin with another pilot due to running out of fuel reportedly bailing out over Hollesley UK just after making feet dry not far from home base. The pilot Boleslaw (Killer Mike) Gladych flying 410 on this mission Gladych claimed 1 FW-190 dest air and 3 Fw-190 dam air I've not looked up the MARC for this as yet but I have been told it was this mission that Gladych collected his scar on his face after bailing out this was 8thAF Mission number 252 and VIII FC FO Flight Order 263 with 900 plus fighters escorting the bombers a mix of 8th and two groups from 9th AF the 56thfg claimed 28 with 5 either KIA or EVD or POW, but this doesn't include the lose of 410 as its not listed I don't have the daily records for the 56thFG but I know a guy who has and double checked with him to make sure it was the 8th March.

So at this point I know feb through to march 8th 1944 being best guess my ref photo shows it having paper belly centre line tank fitted but I have found photos of others D-11 with Metal type centre tank so went with that option knowing they were used at this time on site it didn't yet have its rudder painted red at point of being lost I guess they were making their way through painting all the AC in the group showing 6 kills last claimed in this AC being Feb 22nd 1944 an Fw-190 destroyed air over Lippstadt

I apologise now for not making a kit Im just not into making kits at the min more the painting and research excites me but I do know this would have been much nicer if I had made a kit the donor model isn't really the best example but this is a test for me working my way up being confident enough to make I wanted wings button nose which has a complicated scheme in disruptive dark grey over RAF dark green and NMF undersides so this was my practise model

On to the painting
Some pre and post shading was done again my first time doing this level of painting at any scale but at 1/72 it was fun to try and scale the shading and weathering as best I could understand it all, I tried to take note of sun bleaching to paint as realistic as I could looking at photos of the group and others of that time in the ETO for both top and bottom sides as your know a lot of T Bolts got real dirty but in general most 8thAF FG kept their AC as clean as they could so with a little bit of an idea of where T Bolts weather wear and tear I attempted the painting noting again in the case of 56thFG their AC were polished up for that extra edge performance

As a side note most of the 15 fighter groups within the 8th used concrete runways and airbases designed for bomber groups with long concrete runways not like that lot over in the 9thAF operating on grass fields and mud retirements as a side note as far as I'm aware the 352ndFG at Bodney being the only grass airfield used for 8thAF fighter group they did use the grass at Duxford for when they used multi group A/B missions later in the war

neutral grey was laid down over the original paint work I then added some darker lines while I was there I over sprayed the top surface star bar nose art and D Day ID bands sdqn codes all had to go then I masked up for white ETO ID bands and sprayed the tail end I didn't quite get the lines right with model but as I'm over spraying them I guess I get away with it ill use straight edge next time

I then let it dry over night and attempted to do the olive drab top sides building up coats once happy I then went ahead and lighten my mix and did some shading and picked out some detail from a photo of the worn areas but not happy with the contrast I went back over it with original olive drab coat to blend in my painting this works for me at my level

Left again over night I masked up for red nose ID band and once dry I started to post weather the model using Tamiya weathering packs and some dry brushing of silver and picking out the heavy worn walked wing route I repaired some over spray on props added the weathering to prop blades and was ready for decals

A clear coat Tamiys X-22 was done I did 3 coats but not really sure if this helped or not as the model stayed flat ish you could see a shine but it didn't go super shinny like others I've seen while watching tutorials so not quite sure what happened there

Apart from having to try and make the star bar fit the excess intercooler exhulst open flap on the side everything went down cool with some mircoscale set n sol I could still see some decal film so again I'm not sure if at this age I need to add another coat of Tamiya X-22 clear or not or even a flat coat maybe guys I would appreciate any feedback on this stage

The decals used are from Fighting Units in Colour Peter Randell Nigel Julian these guys noted in the book that the AC Individual code letter was bigger and bared the second M in sqdn the other being NMF HVM 225836 at this time unassigned and flown by Robert Shorty Rankin and William R Hudson.

ah something else here the decal sheet for Gabby's Razor back HVP includes a set for HVM 225836 down as Pengie II Gladych but the facts are his first NMF HVM Tbolt was 44-19718
Followed by Pengie III 42-26300 HV V bar his first TBolt being Pengie II HV O bar 275224

The canopy was hand painted and tooth picked back to usable standard no dip of the good stuff but polish with tooth paste next time I will mask and airbrush as I can see now its all together the difference between the two

Pretty happy with how it all came out building my confidence to attempt my goal model as I've pretty much never made a model to this level of detail I am happy with what I could achieve first time and I know its a lot of work to do to a cheep die cast model but great learning curve any advice I would really appreciate any feedback

Donavon claims in this AC
Showing 6 kills

JULY 30th 1943 Me-109 prob air Nijmegen

Dec 11th 1943 x2 Me-110 dest air Emden
.5 FW-190 dest air Emden
Me-110 dam air Emden

Anyone read the book Ramrod to Emden

Feb 20th 1944 x2 Me-110 dest air Stienhuder lake
Me-110 dam air

Feb 22nd 1944 Fw-190 dest air Lippstadt

Didn't score again in this AC next claim was July 1944

48 additional images. Click to enlarge.