"Bolts From The Blue"
Part Two - American Jabo

by Stan Pearce

Republic P-47D Thunderbolt

available online from Squadron.com

St Dizier, France
February 14th, 1945

My Dearest Alicia Jean,

Happy Valentines Day my sweetheart!

I received your letter with the newspaper clipping the other day. How I love to hear from you and how jealous the other guys get when admire your picture over my rack. The fella’s give me flak about how a bumpkin Tarheel like me could ever land a lady like you…Lucky stars or something I guess. I can’t believe the paper did a story on me! Heck, I ain’t even an ace yet, they must be desperate for news down there in Raleigh. Hope the combat stories didn’t scare Ma and Dad too much. It really ain’t as bad as they tell you, the Germans hardly flies anymore so we just gotta avoid those dang guns. But we gotta a smart bunch of guys here and the old man really knows how to lead his outfit. Ain’t nothing like Brian has to put up with out there against the Japs. Heck what was he thinking joining the Dang Marines anyway? How is the rest of the family, I haven't…


The note was left unfinished on his rack with the folded newspaper clipping. When the bell rang you ran….just ran. He had been scrambled that morning to suppress some German armor about 30 miles behind the front line. After landing the 22 year old Captain had some crackers and spam. Damn he hated spam. He swore he’d never eat ham again after the war. After a quick belt of cold coffee and half a cigarette it was up again, patrolling at 15,000 feet, above the small arms fire, best endurance cruise, waiting for that static appeal to come over the wireless.

When the call came for his section he recognized the twang in the voice, his buddy Captain Tommy Johnson, a hillbilly from Cummings Georgia. Tommy was doing his stint as foreward air controller, slugging up and down the hills with ground pounders. Hell, the big dumb redneck said he even liked it, reminded him of walking the hills of Georgia looking for whitetails, 'cept deer don’t shoot back! All things the same, the young Captain was content to leave stalking the woods to Tommy, for it didn’t agree much with him. Besides, just one more kill would make him an Ace. What would the Raleigh Times have to say about that? They already wrote a story about him on page seven and he only had 3 kills at the time. He just hoped they didn’t use that stupid yearbook picture again.

Snap outta it, quit your day dreaming, he told himself. More than one good guy got hisself killed counting his chickens before they hatched. He was leading the section Eastward into the rising sun, still scanning above, not completely trusting his life to his top cover. “Never get so wrapped up in the attack that you forget the Hun may be about,” the old man always preached. The old man was a grizzled 27 years old, but he had been at it since the Eagle squadron days just at the end of the Battle of Britain, and his word was as good as gospel. It was about the only thing he’d trust his life too.

The target area was some gun emplacements just to the east of the lines, west of a small town and a ridge beside a creek bed.. “Probably a pretty place before the war” he caught himself daydreaming again, but today it looked like the surface of the moon. “Man the artillery is pounding the hell outta the Germans” but somehow they had failed to get into this depression. He could see the white markers indicating the position of the front lines as he continued his descent past 8,000 feet just south of the target area. His plan was to split the section into two groups, his attacking from a Northeast direction, the other from the Southeast almost simultaneously, taking advantage of the low sun to help blind the German gunners. The ridge would also help, but it also meant that he’d only have a few seconds to acquire the target and score a hit. He quickly memorized as many features of the terrain as he could in the run–in area. You didn’t want to have to go back and do the job again in this business. Nope, the jerries would be even more ready and more pissed the second time around. Already little glowing blobs were rising up to meet him, some streaking left and right, the other slowly hanging in space increasing in size. The slow movers were the ones that worried him. “Not today, not today,” he kept thinking to himself as he always did during times like this, his lips unconsciously moving with the unspoken thought anyway.

The ridge line flashed beneath him, and like a bolt from the blue he was upon the target suddenly, snapping in some coordinated aileron and rudder to acquire the target. It was a pair of 88’s , with Jerries ducking for cover everywhere, cept one dumb asshole still shoving a shell up the breech of the gun. To bad for him as the whole area lit up with flashes from he and his wingman’s tracers and shells. As he released his pair of 500 pounders, his aircraft lurched upward as if it had been hit…Damn, that scared him even though he knew the jolt was coming. As he flew Westward low and fast, he craned his neck around to see the other group leaving the target. As their bombs hit, the whole area lit up as someone had found the Jerry’s ammo. As they passed over the American line, they formed up to inspect each other for damage and begin the climb back to altitude. The head count was still four planes, no damage, and a release from the ground controllers for free hunting with the remaining fuel and ammo. As he had only fired about a 3 second burst, he still had over two-thirds his ammo left.

He took up about a 060 heading, his favorite hunting area just east of here, some airfields there that still held what was left of the once feared Luftwaffe. At 18,000 feet they opened into a combat spread, wingman and leader close enough to offer support but not so close that constant attention was needed for formation flying. His wingman was William Morris, a 21 year old Second Looey from Springfield Missouri. A likeable sort Bill was, with one kill to his credit, he had left Texas A&M to enlist in his junior year.

After about fifteen minutes, at the end of his eastbound leg, the young Captain thought he saw a glint off to the southeast. He rocked his wings, signaled his wingman as he assumed a 140 heading to close. Yep, about 3000 feet higher, 8 miles out, a lone FW 190 heading West-North-West. Not exactly the classic position to stage a bounce. The young captain squeezed every inch of manifold pressure he could outta the Pratt and Whitney, and it snarled back in reply. He hoped to acquire an altitude advantage while closing the miles between them. Suddenly the FW rolled right rapidly, turning to the southwest. His nose began to drop and he increased speed. Obviously they had been spotted. Then young Captain realized at once that his adversary was green. Trying to dive away from a Jug! His only chance had been to claw for altitude and press the attack. Maybe he was spooked by being outnumbered, or maybe he thought he hadn’t been seen. It didn’t matter as his ticket was gonna shortly be punched…..

The German continued diving westward as the distance was closed. In a practiced motion the Captain flicked the cover up arming his eight fifties. He was gonna close to point blank and saw this poor idiot in half. At about 500 yards the FW seemed to fill the gunsight and windscreen. Suddenly the German rolled over on his left wing and dove for the earth, the young Captain stabbing a quick burst on the firing button, tracers flying into the FW’s right wing.

The FW dove like a mad man for the deck, while the young Captain lazily lagg rolled in behind him. The ground was rushing up at the German and time and altitude were not on his side. As the FW was forced to shallow out to avoid hitting the ground, the young captain saddled up behind him, taking his time, checking a glance back to see Lt. Morris right back where was supposed to be, guarding his six. As the yardage closed, he flashed one last glance around, then began firing at about 800 yards. Hits all over and almost immediately the canopy flew off the 190. Suddenly a man tumbled free, his leg smashing the horizontal stabilizer on the way out, sending him cartwheeling yards past his airplane. His fifth kill! He looked reward to see if he saw a chute, but as he did the sky literally exploded around him. All below the ground had become alive with German triple A. Suddenly he remembered he was only 2500’ high nearly 85 miles behind the German lines. Before he could look foreword again he saw a bright flash around the nose of Lt. Morris’s fighter. The flame reached rearward as the big fighter rolled over on its right wing. The canopy never slid back and there was nothing on the R/T. Within 3 seconds the aircraft impacted the ground at about an 80 degree angle. Bill didn’t have a chance…

As quickly as it appeared, suddenly the ground fire was gone..just evaporated. He was racing westward, scanning rearward, and feeling quite alone now. Suddenly that fifth kill didn’t matter as much. There would be no celebration tonight. He just wanted to get back to his side of the lines.

The Kit is Academy’s 1/48th scale P-47 D bubble top. It has been reviewed many times before so I will spare you. I found it to be an enjoyable build, with small gaps to fill on the underside wing root. The cockpit was replaced with a resin one from True Details. Yes I know it has 9 spoke wheels also, as the 6 spoke wheels for the D had almost no tread detail. I have a spare 6 spoke set which I intend to rescribe one day…one day!

This was my first foray into natural metal finishes after getting back into the hobby.

The finish is Floquil Old Silver, which goes on like a charm. Only one coat! I masked right on top of this with plain old Scotch transparent tape…no lifting! On top of this was sprayed a coat of ModelMaster Metalizer Sealer. This dried rock hard, giving the Floquil an oxidized aluminum look. This stuff looks good in my opinion and is bullet/idiot proof. Burnt umber oil paints were used to wash in the panel lines.

The decals are Eagle Strike, my first time using them. In register, reacted well to Micro Sol, just had a little time getting the red paint on the cowl ring to match up. Had too apply a circle template over the nose art and mask, blending the red paint onto the decal flash. Since it was a NMF bird, I trimmed all decals to the edge, except the tail code, and still had no silvering whatsoever. After drying a coat of MM Metalizer sealer sealed up the decals nicely. Great stuff IMHO.

The sub assembles were added, MV lenses, and plumbing for the Drop tank. The Red fuse stripe should be added after gluing the cowl/engine in place, to ensure alignment. The plastic gun barrels were not used, instead gluing small brass tubes in the respective hole with a tiny bit of 5 min epoxy to give some adjustment time. Last but not least the Curtiss Electric Asymmetrical prop was painted and decaled.

Academy's 1/48 scale Thunderbolt was an enjoyable build from start to finish. I can’t wait to get started on that Pacific N version next. I’ll try to keep the fairy tail shorter!

To be continued...

 

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Model, Images and Article Copyright © 2002 by Stan Pearce
Page Created 16 February, 2002
Last updated 04 June 2007

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