Historic Closet Find - 1/48 B-29 with Signatures

[Wolfman_63]

My cousin works for a company that rehabs buildings. They were getting ready to gut a building to rehab into an assisted living center. While going thru the building they found a closet that was locked. Upon opening it he found an old Monogram 1/48 scale B-29. Knowing I am into plastic models, he sent it to me. Once I received it I noticed it had writing on the wings. It turns out that this model was built sometime around 2004/2005. It was then taken to an air show and the person had the left wing signed by Paul Tibbets (Pilot of the Enola Gay) and Theodore "Dutch" Van Kirk (Navigator of the Enola Gay). The signature from Paul Tibbets is very faded and during shipping to me a few parts fell off. The model has some dust and a few cracks which can be carefully repaired. I happened to be watching reruns of CSI and they brought up a faded note using UV light. So I grabbed my UV flashlight and took a photo of the faded signature.
Realizing the historical significance of this I contacted a few museums. I am now working with the Air Zoo Museum in Kalamazoo Michigan so it can be restored and displayed properly. Here are the photos:

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Just thought this would be interesting for the forum to see.

 

[herman1rg]

Great find

 

[Micdrow]

Sweet find and glad it will be restored and put o display. A museum on my list to visit in the near future.

 

[Airframes]

Great !

 

[Capt. Vick]

Very cool! Mr. Tibbets must have used disappearing ink on his signatures because the autographed picture I have from him is also similarly faded!

 

[mikewint]

Great find, here's hoping that it can be restored

 

[Tieleader]

Score!

 

[GrauGeist]

Super cool find!

I knew Sgt. Joe Dijulio, who was Enola Gay's radio operator.

 

[Wayne Little]

Wow that's agreat find...

 

[Gnomey]

Very cool!

 

[Tieleader]

Super cool find!

I knew Sgt. Joe Dijulio, who was Enola Gay's radio operator.

Did he get the same grief Tibbets did for participating in the bombing?

 

[GrauGeist]

I don't recall him mentioning any of that, honestly.

I do know that he had brought along his own camera (wasn't supposed to) and had his own collection of photos. He had one such photo hanging in his office.

One fun thing I remember about him and the guys in the office, was when they were trying to get someone's attention, they'd say "Come in B-19, you're over-shooting the field!"

 

[Tieleader]

I don't recall him mentioning any of that, honestly.

I do know that he had brought along his own camera (wasn't supposed to) and had his own collection of photos. He had one such photo hanging in his office.

One fun thing I remember about him and the guys in the office, was when they were trying to get someone's attention, they'd say "Come in B-19, you're over-shooting the field!"

 

[vikingBerserker]

Awesome!