George R Blair Jr (@gblair)
Hello George.
Thank you for stopping by and leaving the nice comments. I remember when you built your Soviet armored car as a part of the Great War group, that you said you didn't build much armor. But you really should, because what I have seen you build looks fantastic. With your military service as an Air Force pilot, I can understand why you build more aircraft models instead of armor. Lately I have been gravitating more towards building armor, but my heart is still in aviation.
I have never been to Camp Mabry, but it sounds like it has a nice collection of things to look at. We had a similar named Army Airfield here in Florida during WW2. It was called Dale Mabry Field, and was located in Tallahassee, FL.
I have this Cologne project underway, and it's due to be posted on March 6th. Then I have a B-25J "strafer" that will be built as another family tribute build for one of my ancestors who never came home from the PTO. I recently scored a pair of 1/48 Monogram B-25J kits that were from 1991. They were still sealed in the shrink wrap, and were the solid "gun nose" version of the original Monogram B-25 kit.
I have done some work to one of my Monogram B-25J's in the stash, so I have a bot of a head start on it.
I have to get it done so I can post it on April 8th, which is the anniversary date of his disappearance on a training flight in the Philippines. He was a B-25 pilot, serving in the 100th Bomb Squadron, 42nd Bomb Group flying out of the newly acquired airstrip at Palawan where the Japanese had recently executed a lot of POW's rather than let them be repatriated.
He was lost along with 4 other pilots, one of whom was the unit commander. They were practicing low level evasion tactics on how to avoid AAA gunfire from Japanese ships. They were also practicing skip bombing. There were also 3 enlisted men on board, serving as gunners.
The last time they were seen, was when the B-25 rolled over into a Split S and disappeared into a cloud. A few minutes later, an oil slick and floating debris was observed where the plane hit the water. They were never recovered, and are still listed as MIA to this very day.
