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Showing results for tags 'representation of a 455th BG aircraft'.
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I say ‘representation’ for two reasons; it is not the best build - I really am getting a bit old for this fine work stuff - and I am not really sure the decal manufacturer and the references in one particular book and the interweb have got it right. I was attracted to the Aeromaster 72-020 B-24 Liberators Galore set. The problem is that they have the rudder markings in red. This is correct for the 456th, but the diamond and clover symbols are consistent not with the 456th, but the 455th, specifically the 741st Squadron. In the Osprey work by Robert Dorr, B-24 Units of the Fifteenth Air Force, at p.29, the red scheme is repeated and the aircraft credited not to the 455th, but the 456th BG. This conflicts with Paloque’s Twelfth and Fifteenth Air Forces and Watkins’ Battle Colours vol. 4. Both publications have the colour as yellow, not red. I resorted to Kenn C Rust’s 1976 publication Fifteenth Air Force Story, which at p.53, shows a 455th B-24 with what he describes as yellow rudders. That photograph is not of great quality but suggests that the engine cowl rings are the same colour. This conflicts with Watkins, who infers a ‘plane-in-squadron’ colour of green. I think green would have shown up darker. However, Watkins, Rust and Paloque concur on the 455th BG rudder colour being yellow and the diamond / clover leaf logo combination being 741st BS. So I took the diamond and clover leaf symbols from the decal sheet and did the rudders and cowl rings yellow. I left off the aircraft name ‘Sissy Lee’ because that seems to have been for a 456th B-24. Michael
