How is Big bellybutton Bird II so much better looking? They practically have the same paint schemes except for the color. It came down between that paint job and this one and we thought this to be the better one for a variety of reasons.
Part of selecting paint schemes is using some foresight into what other variants of that plane will be added later and what paint schemes they'll use. We want to try and keep some distinctiveness between the paint schemes of variants. Also, keep in mind that this is a very late model P-47, so it will be hard to find much outside of the 9th AF, but that's great with me. Fits together better in the big picture.
There are no plans to change the paint scheme, but adding invasion stripes could be done.
To answer the original question, the paint scheme is from the 397th FS, nicknamed "Jabo Angels", of the 368th FG, 9th AF. The 368th FG flew their first mission on March 14, 1944. They were the first group to land on Normandy on June 13, and the first group to be stationed on the continent on Jun 19, 1944.
In the 14 months that the 368th operated, they flew over 1400 missions totalling almost 17,500 sorties and over 45,000 combat hours. They fired over 4.5 million rounds of ammunition and dropped almost 11 million pounds of ordnance. They were credited for 120 air victories, 20 probables, and 59 damaged plus a further 98 ground victories, 15 probables, and 125 damaged. They accounted for 1101 armored vehicles, 10,801 trucks, 913 locomotives, 7477 freight cars, 79 bridges, 1040 factories or buildings, 246 gun positions, 96 supply dumps, and 146 vessels destroyed or damaged. They attacked 50 airfields, 260 railway yards, and made 475 rail cuts. They did this all with combat losses of only 69 P-47s plus an additional 31 damaged beyond repair.
There may not have been a lot of glamour in the job they had to do, but they kicked ass.
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Doug "Pyro" Balmos
HiTech Creations
"I say old boy, why don't you shut up and die like a man?"
