A-26 in Pacific- decals?

[Killingholme]

Hi all,

 

The A-26B made its debut in the Pacific in June 1944, most notably with the 3rd Bombing Group 13 Sqn 'Grim Reapers', but the poor old A(later B)-26 seems to get little love from the decal manufacturers- unless the modeller is seeking a later Korean war, or other postwar French, Cuban, Brazilian machine...

 

So, does anyone make 1/72 decals for a WWII era A-26B? If not, could anyone recommend a real-life Pacific theatre aircraft (preferably gun-nose) which could be easily modelled using generic decal sheets?

[72modeler]

You might look at Osprey Combat Aircraft vol. 82, A-26 Invader Units of WW2 for photos and color profiles- there is a section on PTO Invaders. You could then go to the Kits World website, as they have several A-26 decal sheets with markings for ETO/PTO/ and Korean War Invaders in both 1/72 and 1/48 scale; I'm betting there are not nearly as many references or markings choices for the PTO Invaders, as they got to the theater so late in the war and did not seem to have nearly as much  nose art applied as their ETO and Korean War cousins. You might also try a  search of the bomb groups that flew them, or better yet, one of our resident Invader experts might be able to help you more than I.

Mike

[Jure Miljevic]

I am not certain but I believe decals in one of Italeri boxes, supposedly for MTO, are actually for one of Okinawa based aircraft. Will dig out my kit tomorrow and come back with more info. Otherwise, Mike has a point, there were plenty of new PTO Invaders with hardly any markings apart from national markings and serials. Cheers

Jure

[Boman]

You can see the Italeri version here; https://www.italeri.com/scheda.asp?idProdotto=2329&idCategoria=1&idSottocategoria=3

 

The PTO version is from the 89BS based in the Philipines in 1945

https://www.italeri.com/scheda.asp?idProdotto=2329&idCategoria=1&idSottocategoria=3#

[Jure Miljevic]

Thank you Boman, I completely forgot about this one. I was talking about 44-34486, which in Italeri's kit instructions is listed as belonging to 47th BG in Italy, while she actually flew with 69th RG in France. Nevertheless, there is a photo of 44-34298 white E, from Italeri decal sheet, sitting on her belly, published in the first edition of A-26 In action booklet. 89 BS was part of 3 BG, which, according to the same publication, flew bombing missions against Formosa from Philippines, including the last bombing mission of the war against this island, bombing of sugar refinery on 12th July 1945. After that the 3rd BG moved to Okinawa, where it managed to flew  another few missions, including bombing of aircraft factory in Tarumizu, before the war ended. Cheers

Jure

[Seahawk]

You may find this old thread of use:

 

 

 

[Sydhuey]

The 4 trials A-26B that went to the 3rd Bg were std NMF with Sqn ID coloured stripe on tail tip , they were 6 gun nose with 4 x .50 in pods under each wing and upper and lower turrets with early low canopy, the late A-26's that went to the 3rd were 'Pacific Specials" in OD over NG with 8 gun noses , 6 internal wing guns and only the upper turret, and latter raised canopy . I can give you the 4 x ID's of the original trials A-26's and a selection of the latter A-26's next week when I get home.

[EwenS]

49 minutes ago, Sydhuey said:

The 4 trials A-26B that went to the 3rd Bg were std NMF with Sqn ID coloured stripe on tail tip , they were 6 gun nose with 4 x .50 in pods under each wing and upper and lower turrets with early low canopy, the late A-26's that went to the 3rd were 'Pacific Specials" in OD over NG with 8 gun noses , 6 internal wing guns and only the upper turret, and latter raised canopy . I can give you the 4 x ID's of the original trials A-26's and a selection of the latter A-26's next week when I get home.

The "Pacific Specials" were 6 A-26B-51,19 A-26B-56, 110 A26B-61 and 136 A26B-66 airframes interspersed on the production line with B-50, B-55 & B-60 airframes. All had an extra fuel 125 gal fuel tank in place of the lower turret and OD/NG camouflage. They were produced from April - August 1945 at the Douglas Long Beach factory.

Here is the photo of the crashed A-26B-51 airframe 44-34298 of 3rd BG produced in April 1945 on Okinawa 8/45 (wrongly captioned as a A-20 Havoc) and referred to by Jure.

 

Other serials were B-51 44-34323/T and B-55 44-34374/N and B-56 44-34343/Z

And another unidentified

https://www.google.com/search?q=b-26+on+okinawa&client=firefox-b-ab&tbm=isch&tbo=u&source=univ&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwiqzcez4NjdAhWJDOwKHTVKBvwQsAR6BAgFEAE&biw=1596&bih=878#imgrc=zgNRcWu6XFqpkM:

 

The 319BG flew natural metal A-26B & C from Okinawa generally from earlier blocks with 6 gun noses.