The Portuguese “rebel” – Miles M.2 at the Spanish Civil War
This is the third (and maybe the final) incarnation of my Miles M.2. This time as appeared at Spanish Civil War as José Adriano Pequito Rebelo's aircraft. Rebelo was a Portuguese writer, politician and aviator and a quite restless figure as he volunteered as an aviator in the Spanish Civil War on the side of Francisco Franco. In later years he became a leading advocate of colonialism and in 1961, despite his advancing years, volunteered for pilot duties against pro-independence guerrillas in Portuguese Angola. He bought this airplane in 1935 (ex G-ADEN, c/n 161) and in portugal it gave a civil registration CS-AAL. In july 1936 Rebelo flew his Hawk Major to Burgos and offered to fly any sortie to Francoist forces. He incorporated into the Spanish Militar Nacional and gave a honorary rank of 2nd leutnant and flew missions until the end of the conflict accumulated 1000 hours flying time during missions. At the beginning his plane wore the original civil livery later it was painted medium gray, later the upper surfaces gave a deep green color (probably RLM71?) with white registration numbers and of course the nationalist roundels and stripes. Interesting that he glued a large Iberian Peninsula map onto the wing near the second cockpit for navigation purposes. In 1944 the plane crashed in an accident and written off.
I built this kit several times so it went quite fast this time. On the second picture You can see what's new in this box: practically a new exhaust and the decals - which are beautiful and the map is especially good - specially "silk printed" in very high resolution. Only a few pictures left about Rebelo's airplane but the painting informations seems correct and the contemporary documents agree about the colors. Now I have three Miles in my cabinet - no pun intended. That's all, hope You like it. All C&C are welcome as usual. See You at the Moson Show! Cheers, Gabor
That’s an interesting model. Well done. Thanks for sharing.
Uau Gabor! As a Portuguese and an aviation enthusiast I can say that this model and it’s cheerful (!) pilot are completely new to me. Never before have I heard of Jose Rebelo, as a pilot or as a politician. I guess today remembering our dark history period of fascist dictatorship is not the everyday story in the newspaper of college books, let alone the period in which Portugal became a silent accomplice of the brutal atrocities committed during Franco’s uprising and the subsequent civil war in our neighbour borders. Actually quite a few Portuguese volunteered to fight on both sides of that war. The grimmest part were the refugees from Andalucia that were handed back to Franco’s nationalists, of wich many were duly shot dead.
The anecdote of the glued map over the wing makes this model unique. Thanks for sharing this story and the fine model that supports it!
A great take on the Miles aircraft! Love the map on the wing - very cool! And your usual high standard of modeling of course sets it apart. Well done.
It’s definitely one to make you smile.
‘Liked’
Thank You Gentlemen for Your kind comments. Tomorrow I'll leave heading to Moson 🙂 See You later!
I really like this!
Well done!
Really nice, Gabor. A very interesting model.
Nicely done Gabor.
🙂 … Greetings … 🙂 :
Nice Gabor … very nice work and model. Interesting in every angle.
Nice piece of our history (yes, I'm Portuguese as well). As Pedro said, some of our characteres are not remembered, especialy the ones that fought on the 'wrong' side. But this is a modeling site, and that's what matters to me.
Thanks and congratulations on your model!
Thank You Manuel!