Consolidated PB4Y-1, VPB-103, B-5 “E”, Dunkeswell, UK, 1944
The Subject
During the Battle of the Atlantic, with Britain losing ground and before the US entered the war, the Navy began reorganizing its Patrol Air Wings to address this future problem. In May 1941 Admiral King ordered the Pacific and Atlantic Fleet commanders to reorganize the Patrol Wings into two units: Patrol Wing 7 in the Atlantic, and Patrol Wing 8 in the Pacific. All existing Patrol Squadrons were aligned and renumbered, VP-71, 72, 73…and VP-81, 82, 83….
Until 1943 both Naval Air and Army Air Forces conducted anti submarine warfare (ASW) over the Atlantic. Finally, USAAF agreed to relinquish its ASW missions to the Navy so that it could focus its training and doctrine on bombing Germany. As part of this agreement, USAAF transferred most of the existing B-24 force being used for ASW to the Navy. The Navy then created Fleet Air Wing 7 in the UK to lead and manage the eastern Atlantic anti-submarine campaign from the air.
The B-24’s were modified to carry
the Mk 24 aerial mine because the aircraft could carry it internally and had the range and capacity to use it over the Atlantic. The Mk 24 was actually a homing torpedo, its name disguised to keep its real capability a secret.
B-5 “E” was named Muck’s Mauler after the crew’s commander, LT Charles “Muck” Muckenthaler.
The Model
I acquired this kit as part of a stack of Academy B-24 kits that cost me less than $5 each when these were easy to find at swap meets. The price was so good I did not dig into each kit, figuring if any parts were missing I’d be able to just use one to fix the remainder. Fast forward 20 years when I decide to actually build a PB4Y-1 and missing parts were not the issue. This kit had been started! The fuselage was closed up, but no clear parts installed. AND, the wings and fuselage had been painted olive drab over neutral gray. No weight was in the nose and the landing gear was not quite right, but otherwise construction was not poorly started.
I was tempted to just bin the kit and pull another from my stash, but then I decided to use this as an opportunity to learn a new skill. Specifically, painting as much of the markings as I could versus using decals.
I cleaned up the seams, added as much weight as I could get into the nose (it was not enough) and finished basic construction. I then primed the model overall white using Mr Surfacer 1500, cleaned up any remaining surface issues, and then re-primed again in white. I then did my best to airbrush Gloss Sea Blue on the upper surfaces, with a wavy demarcation.
I then cut some national marking stencils, as well as the larger markings. This was my first attempt at painted national markings and in hindsight I should not have tried the red surround on my first attempt. After a few paint, strip, paint attempts I got them to look good enough. The other markings were black, so that was quite easy.
BUNO and US NAVY were only an inch high but I printed these on decal paper using my printer and with the nose art “Muck’s Mauler” went on nicely.
Summary
This is likely going to get a revisit in the future because I’d like to improve the demarcation overspray. I’d also like to more accurately model the PB4Y-1 that was a B-24D conversion as those mods were minor and after reading Consolidated Mess and [insert ref here] the mods I did to the kit were actually later mods on other PB4Y-1 BUNOs that were new construction and not retrofitted. There is also that issue with nose weight.
As already noted I chose the most difficult marking for a first attempt, trying to get a mask to align that is so narrow in order to cover the red surround was very difficult and not executed as well as I’d hoped even after multiple attempts. I’ve learned to cut an extra set of masks that are larger and more complete.
I now finally have a Liberator on my shelf. The last time I had one it was the ancient Revell kit and I was a pre-teen. I do have enough kits for every variant, so really no excuse.
