Fiesler Fi 167 of V.Cetkovic, Yugo partisan, Pavla+Lift Here, 1/72

[JWM]

Hi,

I've just finished it. So it is not from the shelf but it goes on the shelf right now ...Next odd German of this year production - number ten.

Fiesler Fi 167 was a very rare German machine designed as torpedo-bomber for Graf Zeppelin aircraft carrier. Only 14 were produced and in 1943 they were sold to Croatia where they saw military service against partisans https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fieseler_Fi_167.

The model presents Fiesler Fi 167, ex-Croatian 4807 in colours of Yugoslavian partisans. Yes! Poland has underground state and army, French has Resistance, but only Yugoslavian partisans had their own aviatian! It consist mostly of airplanes and pilots, who flies out from Croatian army.

There were many leaders of partisan - the most well known is Josif Broz-Tito, but another charismatic general was Vlado Cetkovic. He was killed during "friendly fire" attack of some Mustangs when he was flying on board of this Fiesler. Most likely it was on 20 October 1944 - there are some doubts if the accident not hapend three days earlier but the general died for sure on 20th. It is not sure which exactly Mustang shot Fiesler down - no pilot climed victory on this type since Fiesler was so rare machine that was misreconized as Fiat CR 42. Most likely it is said, that this was during attack of SAAF four Mustangs. But on Internet fora you may find discussion on other possiblities and there are photos of shot down Fiesler. In many languages :

http://www.jet-manga.hr/012station/lipovscak.html

http://www.paluba.info/smf/index.php?topic=19724.15;imode

http://www.lasegundaguerra.com/viewtopic.php?f=240&t=10035

Going back to model. This is a Pavla kit with small modifications. Namely I worked a bit on inlet to cooler an small inlet below propeller, I made also some details on front of exhaust pipes, and modified (shortered in height and a bit changed geometry and modified position) of central struts of upper wing and made rotable propeller as always. The changes were done mainly done following analyses of photos not of drawings, which has apparent mistakes while compare to photos.

Decals are from Serbian Lift Here (many thanks to my friend Zora for getting them! ) with modifiaction of adding partially overpainted fragment of red star on red belt on rudder, which is clearly visible on photos of shot down wrecked machine. Colours are by Humbrol new 244/243 (RLM 72/73) and old 65. Vallejo matt coat.

Comments welcome and regards

Jerzy-Wojtek

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edit (immediately): I noticed on photos above that two cables of rigings glued by varnish -it was not difficult to repair immediately

 

 

Edited July 29, 2017 by JWM
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[Mountain goat]

Wow, superb result of a fascinating subject! Most interesting history too.

Jay

[JWM]

Thanks Jay!

Meanwhile, on web page http://www.worldwar2.ro/forum/index.php?showtopic=578

I have found whole story with a lot of deatils and conspiracy theory proposed:

Info from Tino Jelavic on the Fi 167A in the use of Yugoslav Partisan Air Force (!):
> So soon partisan Liaison Squadron of Supreme
> Command got exotic aeroplane Fi 167A-0 (NDH reg. 4807)
> which was built like torpedo-plane for never finished
> German aircraft carrier "Graf Zeppelin" and after that
> given to NDH (Croatian) Air Force for use. That plane was
> overflown on 25th September 1944. from Zagreb to
> Topusko area were in that time was partisan Chief
> Command for Croatia. That was done during material
> delivery task for NDH units (Nezavisna Drzava Hrvatska
> = Indenpendent State of Croatia was German satellite
> state) in Bosanska Gradiska by crew of two pilots
> Major Romeo Adum and Major Matija Petrovic. After that
> they delivered that plane to isle Vis where was based
> partisan Supreme Command and his Liaison Squadron.
> The plane was used mainly for training until 17th
> October 1944 when pilot Miljenko Lipovscak was sent on
> post delivery task for partisan 8th Corp Command with
> crew navigator Ivan Konte and radio/gun operator
> Svetislav Najdanovic. After landing near mountain
> Sator in Bosnia and Hercegovina (which during 2WW was
> part of NDH) and post delivery, they had to transport
> 8th Corp commander General (with one star) Vlado
> Cetkovic to Supreme Command at Vis. In flight back
> they passed over village Vrdovo on mountain Dinara and
> drop signal-tube with post for partisan 20th Corp. In
> that moment they were attacked by four allied fighters
> P-51 Mustang from SAAF (?). Pilot Lipovscak manage to
> crash-landed Fiesler in flame on some hill so crew
> passed with minor injuries but General Cetkovic was
> killed because multiple hits from 12.7mm machine-guns.
> Although RAF Command sent official note with
> explanation and regret, there were some rumours that
> General Cetkovic was intentionally shutdowned because
> he was against planed Allied invasion on Croatian
> Adriatic coast. In that time his 8th Corp was having
> around 60 000 fighters and was biggest Corp in NOVJ
> (Narodno Oslaobodilacka Vojska Jugosavije = Peoples
> Liberation Army of Yugoslavia).

And here a profile from Lift Here decals

http://lifthereserbia.50webs.com/719-LH.htm

Here is next info - unfortunatelly not in English but one can use traslator

http://www.paluba.info/smf/index.php?topic=4710.5745;wap2

According to this four Fi 167 were used finally by partisans, all originating from Croatia - and Croatia had 8 of 14 produced. In some other source it was said that Croatia had 11 of 14 produced...

Regards

J-W

[Luis Alfonso]

Hi Jerzy!!!

Its a nice and refreshing experience to watch a nice and not common aircraft well depicted and with a lot of story, without a doubt this give many more value as the facts we know about planes like this one are thanks to your nice research and modeling sense. I liked the way you have finished the kit, nicely done and with a lot of hard work including the rigging job very well done. We are fortunate you have had the chance to share this kit with us.

Thank you very much for sharing,

Cheers,

Luis Alfonso

[Reini78]

and you continue with the rare and exotic subjects

once again nice work

[John_W]

Jerzy.

Once again you pull a rabbit out of the hat for us.

Trying to imagine that in German markings dropping torpedoes, or fitted with floats as a spotter on a battleship.

[Ed Russell]

That's really nice job J-W. You may have been inspired by mine

http://www.britmodeller.com/forums/index.php?/topic/234986347-fieseler-167-two-builds-the-fi167f-fantasy-and-the-fi167-reality/

which is an earlier incarnation. You have made a pretty good job of the Pavla kit. It was their first effort and it's time someone brought out a new one.

Excellent work and thanks for putting it up.

[JWM]

Many thanks Gents for comments and likes.

That's really nice job J-W. You may have been inspired by mine

http://www.britmodel...-fi167-reality/

which is an earlier incarnation.

Ed, obviously when I 've seen your very nice models of Fi 167 I bacame additionally motivated to do finally the mine one. The truth is also that I was collecting all materials for this machine since some years. What perhaps interesting the partisan decals by Lift Here were with me before I've bought on Polish web page named "Allegro" (something like E-bay) the Pavla kit - and first of all was book on Croatian airforces

(Available now on net - https://hrvatskoobrambenostivo.files.wordpress.com/2015/07/the-croatian-air-force-in-the-second-world-war.pdf) when I saw the photo of a shot down partisan Fi 167 and read story about Cetkovic. This was in 2003 (this is the date of scan of the photo in my archive...). Since this I was thinking, that one day I will do this model... I have many such decission on certain model painting scheme inside me waiting sometimes 20 years for beeing done finally (or not done... ) . Now it is something on Danish Nimrod II, Vildebeest from war with Persia, Middle-East RAF Bombay, Croatian Bucker 133, particular German Dorniers 18 and 26, Me 262 B, Douglas A 26 C (the unarmed black one from carpetbaggers), Hungarian Savoia Sm 75 and Caproni 101, Brazilian P 47 D and many others....

John, indeed - this machine might have take much serious part in war. it is a kind of miracle that Graf Zeppelin was never finished despite the whole economical potential of III Reich.

Luis and Reini - obviously some my models are a bit by chance, or simply motivated by aesthetic point of view - interesting painting scheme. But I prefere to find some story behind them...Special thanks that you noticed this

I appreciated all comments and likes

Regards

J-W

Edited May 6, 2016 by JWM

[Buzby061]

A rare bird indeed, nice work & thanks for the history.

Pete

[tonyot]

Another interesting model Jerzy with a great back story,....well researched and built,....I always look forward to your models,

Cheers

Tony

[JWM]

Pete and Tony - many thanks for comments. I appreciate them very much.

Tony - I do hope to keep your interest in my next models in future

Cheers

J-W

[warhawk]

I like how this model genuinely depicts a Yugoslav Partisan wartime inability to draw a red star properly... or in first try...

I know there was (were) occupier(s) to kick out of the country, but come on...

Don't believe me?

I bet there are 3 or 4 star attempts under all that green

img source: Wings Palette

img source: Wings Palette

 

Add to that the extremely exotic subject that no one supposed would wind up with the Croat puppet state, let alone Partisans later, and You've got Yourself a real head turner there.

Good job!

Edited April 9, 2019 by warhawk

[Tomoshenko]

Original and interesting. Nice rigging too.

[JWM]

Thanks Gents for comments

Warhawk - superb painting schemes, especially Caproni is very bizzare. However - I think that the "field made" red stars would be very risky to be reproduced on a model - one have to a really maestro of modelling to made it in an appropriete way, not looking too naive or childish style...I have to confess, that I will be not brave enough to make such Caproni, I think.

Tomoshenko, special thanks for notice rigging. Indeed - there is surprisingly a lot of wires on this Fiesler! Two cables are even not noticed on Pavla instruction - they goes on the outer sides of inner struts, on struts diagonal (bottom rear to upper front). Frankly speaking rigging was something, what made me waiting so long with doing this model, it is a huge work to do with heat-thinned poly spures, what was my technique before. From a year I am using EZ wire and this is a reasonable way to made a complex rigging - therefore I am doing now relatively a lot of biplanes. Anyway it took some hours to do. Here I also found how to improve a bit ork with riging - I am glueing with CA a thin (0.5 mm diameter) piece of sprue of polystyrene to end of EZ wire and use it as a kind of needle "sawing" the rigging. This makes the work faster - the EZ wire is electrostatic charging and if you use it without this "needle" it takes some minutes sometimes to put the end of wire into drilled opening with a pincet...

Cheers

J-W

J-W

[warhawk]

However - I think that the "field made" red stars would be very risky to be reproduced on a model - one have to a really maestro of modelling to made it in an appropriete way, not looking too naive or childish style...I have to confess, that I will be not brave enough to make such Caproni, I think.

I fully agree. Many people think they can just do "whatever they want", but it won't look convincing. You have to do "the "whatever way" they did it" exactly.

Same thing with winter or most Italian camouflages (smoke-rings and poached eggs come first to mind)

Regards,

Aleksandar

[JWM]

Thanks (or hvala) Aleksandar

[Jure Miljevic]

Hello Jerzy-Wojtek

How could I completely miss RFI of your model? Very nice Partisan Fi 167, well-weathered as it should be given the subject of your build. I could not help but notice a bit thick wing and control surfaces trailing edges but this is not unseen on a short-run kits and there is little one can do about it anyway. All in all, I like it very much.

I doubt shooting down and killing of General Cetkovic was intentional. While Winston Churchill had been considering Balkan landing in 1943, this plan had been discarded by 1944. Unfortunately, friendly fire was far from uncommon in WWII. Given the high rank of the officer involved it is hardly surprising not everybody believed it was only an unfortunate incident. Just think about controversy surounding the death of General Sikorski. Cheers

Jure

[JWM]

Hello Jure,

Thank you for excavating this topic and your kind  comment :) .

Of course it is hard to be sure about such complex in contextes and consequencies event  like shooting down of one of underground Yugoslav leader who was flying in a partisan machine but which was a German production airplane over German-controlled territory ... The SAAF Mustangs pilots had too much prejudjments that what they noticed must be enemy airplane... If this was a complot it could be of any side - the Mustang pilots were just  used there. 

Regarding General Sikorski crash I've read recently a kind of analyses which suggests (and confirmed me) that it was just a crash, however the most strange in that story is a decission from few years ago about keeping confidential all British documents on this crash for next 50 years!...

Cheers

J-W

[Jure Miljevic]

Hello Jerzy-Wojtek

I believe RAF established a kind of semi-free fire zone over Yugoslavia in 1944. By the same token, Royal Navy reserved the right to sink every vessel during daylight, no matter which flag she may have been flying. There was plenty of grey areas within these restrictions, though, and friendly fire incidents were bound to happen.

I first read about Sikorski crash as a boy in Piekałkiewicz's book Spionen, Agenten, Soldaten. To me the story sounded like unfortunate incident, although a highly unusual one. Around here some blamed British for a death of Ivo Lola Ribar, who in autumn 1943 got killed in Partisan Do 17, about to take off, which had been bombed on the ground by German Hs 126. Ribar was leading a delegation which was sent to talk with Allied representatives in Italy. Given that two relatively high-ranking British military mission members (Major and Lieutenant-Colonel) had also been killed in the incident, British involvement can be ruled out. A year or so later, Commander in Chief of Slovene Partisan Army, Lieutenant-General Franc Rozman Stane, had been mortally wounded when a round exploded in a tube of para version of British two-inch mortar he had been evaluating. I am not quite certain, but I understand these Mk.VII two-inch mortars were so unreliable, that they had not been issued to British Paras post-D-Day, although Canadians and others did get them. Again, a faulty equipment rather than a any malicious intent should be blamed. Cheers

Jure

[JWM]

Jure, thank you for comment. History is full of mysteries and will stay this way, unfortunatelly. Politics is second oldest profession...

 

Regards

J-W