Cripes A Mighty Eduard 1/48
I have a list of Mustangs I want on the shelf and at the top is Preddy's Cripes. @lgardner wrote a great story about Cripes for his beautiful 1/32 build. This lead me down another rabbit hole regarding the history of 44-13321. As Louis wrote, and history played out, after George's famous August 6th 1944 mission, shooting down 6 Germans, he rotated home. 321 soldiered on in the hands of several other pilots, including John Meyer, Henry Stewart, Francis Reading, Marion Nutter and Walter Padden. After 10 epic months of service and being the highest scoring P-51, she would unfortunately see her demise, along with Walter Padden in April of 1945. Walter was born in Chicago in October of 1921 and joined the 352nd as a 1st LT. On the 16th of April 1945 the group was hunting targets of opportunity after an escort mission in the vicinity of Regensburg. To the south was Ganacker Airfield and was ripe with enemy aircraft. The group attacked and as noted in the attached photo, 75 e/a were destroyed. During the melee Bill Pattillo, flying Sweet and Lovely, was hit and bellied in near the airfield and taken POW. The other bluenoser casualty that day was Walter Padden flying 321. After scoring a reported 2 strafing victories he was hit by flak and last seen heading west and pouring smoke. He was listed as MIA according to his MACR #13860. The Lat and Long noted in the MACR put the crash site about 40 miles west of Ganacker. Although he is listed on the memorial wall at Epinal Cemetery, I read an account in 'Blue Nosed Bastards of Bodney', that he attempted to bail out but ended up going through a tree and perishing. Since there is no grave I'm sure there is more to the story that is lost to history. It's been a bucket list idea to someday visit these places...I really can't explain why...but, if 'someday' ever comes, all my maps are ready.
The model itself is basically straight out of the box, it really doesn't need a whole lot of extras. I used the furnished PE Panel and seatbelts in the cockpit and dressed up the gear well and brake lines with lead wire. To get the canopy properly seated I shaved down the upper fuselage and the inside of the canopy frame. The main focus was going to be the finish. Not too long ago Honza Baranec's B model build was featured in an Eduard newsletter. He used the Mr. Metallic and Abteilung Oil paints and had spectacular results. Once the UPS man delivered all the paints I got to work. I didn't use any primer on this one, just Mr. Color gloss black and it worked a treat. The Wings are filled with Tamiya White putty and painted with Mr. Color Silver, the rest are the Mr. Metallic paints sealed with Mr Color Super Clear III. The clear is the only sensitive paint in this system. It can't be thinned too much or it will dull the metal sheen. I use only enough leveling thinner to get it through the brush. Once the metal colors and decals were applied and cleared I went in with Abteilung Smoke and Dark Earth. There is a learning curve with the oils, BUT, you can wipe off and start over if something doesn't look right (which I did several times) Some day I will add the drop tanks...in my haste to get it to the show in Cincinnati I damaged one of them with super glue. In all this was a blast to build and I'm forever sold on the new Metallics. More Mustangs to come.
Cool story, Jim (@jimh). Sometimes tracking down the background is as much fun as the model itself. Model looks great.
With all the information (and photos) available today via the internet, it sure adds a lot of depth to each pilots story and overall history.
Excellent model and ditto writeup, Jim!
Well done!
Thanks Spiros! This hobby only seems to get better and better…kits, paints, research tools…
Great model, beautiful work Jim. I really like the histories behind the aircraft. No body thinks about what happens to the aircraft after the there most notable pilots rotate back to the states, and other pilots take charge of the aircraft. Great story.
Thanks Clint! I almost cringe to say it, but the various Facebook groups have been invaluable. Lots of family members have been coming forward to fill in gaps and provide a lot of unseen photos. Really adds another dimension to the hobby
Looks very nice.
@jimh perfect representation of Preddy's Pony. Thanks for sharing.
Stunning build. Spectacular weathered NMF Jim.
Thanks Triet! Lots of inspiration out there.
Jim Harley (@jimh)
You have done a magnificent job with you "CAM III" Mustang ! I enjoyed everything about this article, from the magnificent photos of your spectacular Mustang model, to reading about the history behind it. I have wondered about what eventually happened to Preddy's former mount. I have plans to eventually build up a model of the plane he was killed in on Christmas Day in 1944. I believe it was a P-51D-15-NA (or maybe a -20 ?) and it had the darker Blue paint on the nose and some red and white "barber poles" painted on it according to my Eagle Editions book that came with the decal set.
This Preddy scheme also happens to be my all time favorite paint scheme for any P-51. There's just something special about the Blue Nosed Bastards of Bodney...
I have been all over the southern part of Germany when I was in the US Army back in 1983 as a part of the REFORGER operation. I saw most of the countryside viewed from either the driver's position, or from the top of a turret in a M-60A1 tank. It's a beautiful area there, and chances are I might have been near the crash site you mentioned. I still have some of my old maps that show where we were, so I should be able to tell just how close I actually might have been. I will check on this when I get a chance, and send you a text about what I find.
Thank you for the shout out on my 1/32 version and the article I posted here on Imodeler about it. It is sincerely appreciated.
I am very impressed with how your P-51 looks. Your paint and weathering look spot on too, but what really caught my eye was how you depicted the underside of yours. It is the best looking version of this model that I have ever seen, hands down. You my friend are the Mustang guru... or the Mustang whisperer if you will. I can tell this project was a labor of love. It shows.
So I made sure to click on several of the various "like" buttons.
Well done my friend on all counts... Very well done indeed.
It also reminded me that I have to finish up my 1/32 Revell "LOU IV", and the other 1/48 scale Mustang kits that I have started in my "Mustang Kindergarten"... So many kits, so little time. I plan to build one of these Mustangs in my Kindergarten as one that was based in Sarasota, FL during the War, as an advanced fighter training aircraft. I found some very cool films online that show many of the Army Air Force fighters taking off and landing there. In this silent film, there are some P-40N's and P-51D's that were being used by pilots in their final stages of flight training. There were also some AT-6's and possibly even a P-63 or two.
Florida was used for training a lot of pilots by both the Army and the Navy during the war because of it's typical good weather for flying throughout the year. Since it's also my home state, I'm a bit partial to the history it has, especially during the War.
So please keep an eye out for a series of upcoming builds, that were based on Florida training aircraft.
Excellent work on this Mustang, Jim @jimh
Paintwork is very nice.
Thanks for the interesting historical part.
Great looking build, Jim!
Great looking build Jim. Thanks for going down that rabbit hole and sharing what you found. It is always a nice bonus to learn something new. I am looking forward to more of your bucket list P-51s down the road.
Damn fine NMF.
A beautiful build, and the NMF work is fantastic- weathering included. Well done!
Beautiful build!