Douglas O38 E Haiti 1942-43

[JWM]

Hi,

I am doing now two Douglas biplanes: O2MC from China (1937) and O38E from Haiti 1942-43. Both models are from Ardpol - small Polish company producing very nice resin models in my home city - Krakow. The dacals in both cases comes "from drawer"  - since in boxes there US markings only. 

On a web page http://www.39-45.org/viewtopic.php?f=65&t=37035 there are some illustration on O38E.

The Haitanian O38E was photographed after crash:

 

There is also a colour profile:

 

The colour scheme above (or profile) is not 100% consisten with photo - on photo the number on tail is rather  just "001" not "4001" although the machine has s/n 34-001 indeed. Moreover the propeller on photo is dark (at least from back) and looks like having typical for US three colours stripes at the blade end. On profile it is all in alu. There is soemthing else. Here on profile there is a character "H" on bottom of left wing. I've seen (on a scratch build model in net) interpretation of this H as begining of word "Haiti" but if H is on left wing this description is redible from back. This is rather unusual - the description on wings usually are written to be read from front, so H should be on right wing. Or the inscription is not "Haiti" but something else? A part of tactical code, for instance hope that some experts on Ibero-American avaition can help...Likely some other Haitanian airplanes had similar inscriptions?.

 

Best regards

Jerzy-Wojtek

 

 

 

 

[JWM]

Is there a single reader who knows anything about Haiti in WW2, please? 

[Doc72]

I don't know anything, but have you seen the book "Latin American Air Wars and Aircraft, 1912 - 1969" by Dan Hagedorn? There might be a (brief) chapter on Haiti in WW2 in it.

Actually, I have the book in my library but I can't access it at the moment. I will take a look as soon as I am home again at the end of the week.

[Junchan]

The WW2 chapter of Latin American Air Wars, 1912 - 1969 does not cover any info on the Haitian Air Corps except for the photo of the crashed O-38E Jerzy posted. Meanwhile, another book on Latin American Military Aviation titled 'CENTRAL AMERICAN AND CARIBBEAN AIR FORCES' by the same author describes a story about the Haitian O-38Es, but there was no photo of the O-38E..

On 12 June 1942, six O-38Es (US s/n 33-12, 33-14, 33-16, 34-1, 34-6 and 34-13) were delivered to Haiti. They retained US camouflage of olive drab and light grey, but with the Haitian national insignia painted on each side of the fuselage and on the upper left and lower right wing. A large letter "G" was marked under the right wing and the letters "d'H." under the left wing that stand for the Garde d'Haiti. The Haitian serial numbers were painted on the fin as 3012, 3014, 4017, 4001, 4006 and 3015. Four out of six O-30Es had crashed during war time but remaining two had been in service until 18 February 1943 when they were replaced by Taylorcraft L-2Bs.

 

Cheers,

Jun in Tokyo

https://www.flickr.com/photos/horaburo/albums

 

[JWM]

Many thanks for Doc72 for good will and for Junchan - for both good will and many important to finish the model infos! I appreciete it very much. I belived that the truth is somwhere out there.... So it is G and d'H! Great! -  it is in normal, typical orientation available to read whan airplane is incoming. 

The exact  position of bomb rack below wing ramains the only one thing not sure, but this is more or less localized.

I can start finishing it. The bombs Mk XVII (depth charges) I have from Attack Squadron...

Best regards and have a happy New Year with a lot of modelling!

Cheers

Jerzy-Wojtek

 

Edited January 19, 2017 by JWM
correction of error (name: Attack Squadron)

[JWM]

Many thanks Junchan again - I finished model and posted on RFI

 

Cheers

J-W