Jump to content

1st Air Commando's in CBI


tkirk

Recommended Posts

Fellow Modelers

Just got through watching "war stories with Ollie North" The episode about The China,Burna India CBI theater, 1st Air Commando unit which was formed late 1944. They were given P-40;s, B-25. C-47P39and P51As or Bs??

Anyone know what they had P-51'sA,orBs?? paint schemes? so on

Thanks

Tim Kirkland

Link to comment
Share on other sites

P-51A's to start, and P-51Bs as the war progressed; though many of them flew P-40s til the end of the war. Until the end of the war, most all of their aircraft remained camouflaged; od over neutral gray. Only at the end, when many planes were being built and delivered in NMF (due to complete air superiority) did they start getting "silver" airplanes (generally speaking). Remember, the CBI was the backwater of the Pacific theater, which was given lower priority than Europe. That means the CBI got whatever the Pacific folks could spare, and that was even more meager than anyone else! They did as much or more, with less, than almost anyone else, and under very diverse and trying conditions. It's still a very under appreciated, under reported, and under represented part of WWII; and that goes for modeling too.

 

It's no wonder we don't have an injection molded C-46 in 1/48!

 

That said, they did have some interesting schemes:

3_71_b1.jpg

 

 

b25h_1acgthumb.jpg

 

profile_mustang_07.gif

 

GIL :smiley16:

Edited by ghodges
Link to comment
Share on other sites

×
×
  • Create New...