Hey Oboe! Re: Itsy Bitsy II

[Guppy35]

I saw that you listed it as 54th FS, 343rd FG.

That is not correct.  That would apply to Laven's first P38E "Itsy Bitsy" when he was flying in the Aleutians.

Itsy Bitsy II was when he was XO of the 49th FG, 5th AF at the end of the war.

His plane was crewed by guys from the 8th FS, 49th FG so that would be more accurate.

You can see Laven's first Itsy Bitsy, #76 in this color photo from the Ethell book.  This was when he was with the 54th FS, 343rd FG.

Dan/Slack

[oboe]

Oh thanks for that find, Dan!  

I got the FG/squad info from a site reviewing Trumpeter's model kit:
http://www.largescaleplanes.com/reviews/Trumpeter/p38/p38.htm

I'll hold off on correcting it until Skuzzy gets back to me with a skin reference number on the submission.  

So there is no squad affiliation, since as XO of the FG he was not part of any of the FG's squadrons?
----EDIT: Don't know how I missed that reference to being crewed by the 8thFS, but I'll go with that then.
 
btw, I have had email contact with his nephew since I made the skin - he confirmed your opinion that George was quite the character.    His nickname was 'Butz', and he once smashed a DeLorean up at 150 mph, walked away from the crash and went out and bought another one.    Flying was his life, and he flew past 70 yrs old as a rep for McDonnell Douglas to Israel.   But after he retired, his health went downhill pretty fast and passed away before too long.     What a guy.    Apparently he had one of the first P-38 kills of the war, and also the last.

Unfortunately I wasn't able to establish any family ties - the nephew didn't recognize any of my ancestors names, and didn't know much about his family history or origins.