Here is the information about the unit Mike Rebo flew with, and also the serial number and type of aircraft that he was shot down in. He was flying in the 49th Fighter Bomber Group, 9th Fighter Bomber Squadron. Aircraft of the 9th FBS had alternating red and white diagonal chevron stripes painted on the tail as well as the outer wing tanks on occasion. This is a picture of a F-84E that was on Wikipedia. This is an aircraft from the same unit that Mike flew in. His plane would have been marked similarly. This unit was called the "Iron Knights"
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The aircraft in which he was killed in was a F-84E-30RE. It was serial number 51-549. This means the plane would have had the numbers FS-549 on each side of the nose. It could possibly have had a large capital letter "A", "B" or even a "C" following the "FS-549" nose number, but at this point in the War, I would venture to say it was not as likely to be present. This additional lettering was done to denote the second or thirs aircraft within the unit with the same last three digits of the serial number.
Since I don't have a picture of his plane, I can't state this with absolute proof.
This aircraft Mike was flying was shot down by a Russian fighter pilot who was also an "Ace", named Pavel S. Milaushkin, who was flying as part of the 176 GIAP. Here is a link to the model I built of the MiG 15.
Sadly, Mike Rebo is recorded as one of the small red stars on the side of the fuselage of this MiG.
MiG Group Build : 1/48 Tamiya MiG-15 bis, Captain Pavel Milauszkin, 176 IAP / 324th IAD, Korea 1952.
I have two of these Revell 1/48 scale kits. One is marked as a F-84E, and the other one is marketed as a F-84G.
The parts inside the boxes appear to be the same. I am also considering building both of these kits now, and simply building the second one with markings from the sister unit. The main difference is that Mike’s aircraft will have red and white chevrons on the vertical fin / rudder, and the other plane will have either black and yellow, or white and blue chevrons. I can also use the second style of canopy if in fact I do end up building these models. I can also build up the second kit marked as this exact plane, since this is an option in one of these models. This happens to be the unit's Commander. His chevron stripes are red, yellow, and blue. This covers the stripes from all three Fighter Bomber Squadrons.
I also have a 1/48 scale Tamiya F-84 and I just might have to build it up too.
Over the last few days I have been working on gluing together the parts that I can before I start with the painting.
Here are some pictures of the assembly work I have completed so far. I have been building the Revell F-84E, and I must say the fit and finish of the plastic parts have been VERY good. Here you can see the wings and fuselage parts.
The details are quite nice inside the wing, and once the parts have been glued in position, it looks like this.
The various ordnance items, drop tanks and such have been built. They have also included a pilot figure that is designed to be posed standing next to the model, and not seated in the cockpit as most are. I am not good with painting figures. However, I just might have to make an attempt with this one.
This is as far as I wanted to go with assembling the cockpit. These parts are all supposed to be painted using "Interior Green". The head rest on the seat is going to be painted black, as is the hand grip on the joy stick.
This is an accumulation of five separate parts. This assembly is installed under the sliding portion of the canopy, and gets painted flat black.
These cockpit sidewalls also get painted Flat Black,
as does the instrument panel. The IP is nicely detailed right out of the box. This is a quality kit.
This next photo shows the assorted cockpit pieces, and how I stopped assembling them in order to make things a lot easier with the painting.
One last thing. 1st Lieutenant Michael Rebo's last radio transmission went something like this:
"I'm hit ! I'm hit ! I'm wounded and I can't control the plane ! ".
Like I stated in a previous reply to Spiros, Freedom is NOT free.
As always, comments are encouraged.
Thanks for stopping by.
