More about Kepford's Corsair............

Claude,

If you have Lee Cook's book on VF-17, page 102 has an image of the wreck showing the tires. The right side tire is a smooth contour and the left is a diamond tread. More about this aircraft below. These posts are from HS PT years ago.

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Steve Hill
Kepford's Hawgs
Wed Apr 3 21:49:46 2002
65.125.203.15

Ike's log book is on display in the Navy Museum at the Washington Navy Yard in Washington D.C. I was able to have it photo copied for the Naval Aviation History Office.

It clearly shows that Ike used three different Corsairs to score his kills, 17684, 17648, and the famous "29", BuNo. 55995. The Aircraft History card for 55995 makes no mention of assignment to VF-17, by the way. Also, he only used it for his last three kills. In short, 55995 was a replacement aircraft.
Concerning red surrounds, they were in use for only a short period of time, 28 June 43 to 31 July 43. By November 43 in the area in which VF-17 was operating, red surrounds were a thing of the past. If an aircraft had them, they were painted out with a shade of blue. IMHO, black and white photographs will not cut it. At any rate, 55995, without question, had Blue surrounds just by looking at its delivery date on the A/C History card. However, I will gladly eat those words if a color photograph is ever discovered. Barret Tillman and Bob Lawson did a neat Jeff Ethell style color photograph book of naval aircraft in WWII. There is a cool color picture of an F4U-1 with a multi blue-hued surround to its left fuselage national insignia.

Finally, with respect to the F4U-1A designation. As far as the Navy is concerned F4U-1A is not an OFFICIAL designation. All F4U-1 aircraft were F4U-1 aircraft. There was no OFFICIAL distinction made between "birdcage" Corsairs and "bubble" Corsairs. I did not believe it either at first. Then I checked official Navy sources.

Now, as a sometimes keeper of odd knowledge, I share this last bit of info. merely to inform, definitely NOT to annoy, anger, or irritate my readers.

Hope this helps!

Best wishes,

Steve


Now that we have the BuNo's... donfenton, Wed Apr 3 23:19
Don, look closely at Lee Cook's book... Rato Marczak, Thu Apr 4 09:38
Kepford's Hawgs, Part 2... Steve Hill, Thu Apr 4 20:16:53 2002


don fenton
Now that we have the BuNo's...
Wed Apr 3 23:19:01 2002
158.252.154.68

Steve,

Do you have the IARC's (history cards)for the other two a/c? I share your opinion that any image, even color ones are a poor way to match colors. If you have Cook's book, take a look at the images of Kepford's a/c destroyed when landing. You can find the images on pages 102, 103 and 104. This aircraft is clearly marked "29". Do you know the BuNo. for this a/c? If the damaged aircraft shown in Cook's book was 55995, it must have the recipient of a heroic effort in restoring it to flight status, followed by an extensive repainting. The IARC's of the three a/c you list should hopefully provide some insights. Obviously, the history card would mark the date the wrecked aircraft was struck off if it was scrapped. Cook reports the date as 30 Jan 44. Perhaps the date is incorrect. Kepford's log book must certainly have a record of his tenth kill. The wrecked aircraft clearly bears ten kill flags.

If the red surround on the national insignia was over-painted in blue, then that must have been some very light shade of blue. The tonal variation, even in these reproductions, between the surround and the dark blue of the insignia is quite marked. The insignia is shown from several different angles. The red in the kill markings provides a likely reference for red values in the image. Hill and others have noted that the in some cases red marked insignia continued into 1944, despite the issuance on 31 July 43 of the order to "eliminate red border on SOPAC planes" (Elliot reports this as message 300224). My opinion is that the wrecked aircraft in the images had the red surround. But, you know about opinions, everyone has one. I'll gladly change my mind if a color image or other info comes to light that proves that this aircraft had the surround painted in blue of any shade. This is the subject a/c of my future build. I would be deeply appreciative for any corrections or any further info concerning this aircraft.

Thanks for the info and the assistance.

Regards,

Don


Rato Marczak
Don, look closely at Lee Cook's book...
Thu Apr 4 09:38:40 2002
143.54.70.23

... and you will see that that a/c was his first #29. The BuNo. is in Osprey books on Corsair aces (for both #29 Ike flew). The crashed a/c wore 15 kill markings, but some of them were removed after the crash (souvenirs maybe?), leaving some there. In Blackburn's book, Ike belongs to the 4th squad, what means a blue prop hub (including a few inches of the blade), but I can't assert if and when his a/c abandoned the rule.

As a final note, Ike also flew a white #7 early in the game.

Cheers,

Rato


Steve Hill
Kepford's Hawgs, Part 2
Thu Apr 4 20:16:53 2002
209.26.31.22

From 11 Nov 43 through 30 Jan 44, Ike used Buno. 17684 to score all his kills during that time frame, 12 kills in all. So, on 30 Jan 44 it appears "his" Corsair would have displayed 10 flags. That same day he claimed two additional kills, a Zeke and a Tony, and then crashed on landing. On 3 Feb 44, he used 17648 to destroy a single Zeke. Then, on 19 Feb 44, he used 55995 to score his three final kills.

Corsairs in the 55784-56483 block were delivered to the Navy beginning in October 43. 55813 was delivered on 29 Oct 43, for example, while 56359 was delivered on 29 January 44. This seems to narrow things down quite a bit.

Hope this helps!

Steve







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