Midway TBF and B26 information

[ktank]

Our local modelling club, the ACT Scale Modellers' Society, has its annual exhibition in November and one theme is the 75th anniversary of 1942. I'm contributing a number of 1/72 models of aircraft of the Battle of Midway but have problems finding some information on the very early B-26s and TBFs used in the action.

1. TBF cockpit and windows

(a) The aircraft I'm modelling, BuNo 00380, was apparently the first TBF delivered to the Navy. I understand the first 50-60 TBF-1s had the position behind the pilot occupied by a fourth crew member, rather than the later radio etc gear, including backup controls and instruments. Does anyone have a photo or other details. of this position? I understand there is one in the Detail and Scale Avenger book, but I don't have access for this.

(b) Apparently there were differences in the window arrangements in these very early Avengers. The only one I've been able to find definitively (and in photos) is a window in the rear access door. Were there any others?

(c) more generally were there any peculiarities of 00380 given its very early status compared to other early TBFs?

2. B26 details

As far as I understand the four B26s that performed the torpedo bombing raid were a B26 and a B26A from 22nd Bombardment Group and very early B26Bs from the 38th. I intend to model SuzyQ, which I understand was the B26 and hence was built with spinners. The Starfighter decals Midway set that I'm using however has a profile showing the aircraft without spinners. But I've seen another profile with the spinners, and the famous photo of Muri and crew in front of a B-26 that shows spinners, although I can't be sure the aircraft shown is SuzyQ.

So... did SuzyQ have the spinners removed or not?

Many thanks.

PS: just south of us in Canberra is NASAs Tidbinbilla Tracking Station which transmitted the final commands to the Cassini probe and received its last transmission.

 

[fubar57]

Send me your email in a PM and send you what I have on the TBF and I'll look around for B-26 info. Member Greg Boeser would probably be your go to guy for the B-26

 

[Capt. Vick]

Just a guess, but I would think Suzy Q didn't have spinners.

 

[Capt. Vick]

Please post any info that you can confirm on the Suzy Q. I plan to build one out of the valom kit. Thanks.

 

[Greg Boeser]

Both a/c flown by the 408th BS were B-26s with spinners: #40-1391, "Suzie Q", and #40-1424, "Satan's Playmate"; the a/c flown by the 69th BS were early model B-26B with spinners. I have not been able to locate their IDs, but Collins' plane carried the nickname "Winsockie". All a/c had .30 caliber guns mounted in nose, waist windows, and camera hatch. The B-26's tail position when open looked like this:

You can see the tops of the upper canopy halves, with the semicircular cutout for the gun in the closed position visible, tucked inside the tail cone. Also visible are the tracks on the rear bulkhead which guided the canopy into the closed position, as well as the latches that secured the canopy in place (left and right, just above the plane of the gun barrel.)
There is a much better photo of the tail position on page 70 of The Revenge of the Red Raiders, Eagles Over the Pacific, Volume II, IRPC.
There seems to be a lot of confusion about the B-26 and the B-26A. B-26s were flown in action by the 22nd and 28th Groups from 1942 to 43, with refurbished B-26s flying with the 22nd's 19th BS into January, 1944. The B-26A was used only for training by the USAAF, but lend lease Marauder Is were used by the RAF in the Med.
I think some of the confusion has to do with the fact that turret production was severely backlogged and most B-26s prior to the outbreak of war did not have them installed. This was rectified shortly after Pearl Harbor, and all B-26s committed to combat zones had turrets installed.

 

[Greg Boeser]

The post battle publicity shot is definitely not Suzie Q, as she was just a pile of scrap pushed off the end of the runway at Midway. Muri did cut out the panel with the nickname and kept it as a souvenir.
Either one of the two 408th BS B-26s remaining in Hawaii, or one of the recently arrived B-26Bs of the 69th BS or 70th BS.
I've not seen any photos of Pacific based Marauders without spinners except AT-23s or JM-1s assigned to tow target squadrons later in the war.

 

[ktank]

Send me your email in a PM and send you what I have on the TBF and I'll look around for B-26 info. Member Greg Boeser would probably be your go to guy for the B-26

Dumb question - how do I send a PM? Via Profile Post?

 

[fubar57]

Click on my avatar and select "Start a Conversation"

 

[ktank]

Please post any info that you can confirm on the Suzy Q. I plan to build one out of the valom kit. Thanks.

Be aware that the Valom kit has some serious accuracy problems that are very difficult to correct. Valom apparently based it on a single set of drawings from Detail and Scale that were seriously out.

The main problems are:

Fuselage diameter too large
Nacelles ditto plus wrongly shaped
Wing incidence set to zero rather than 4.5 degrees.

Theoretically you could correct the first two by cutting them longitudinally in both planes and removing slices, gluing them back together, then sanding them back to shape and rescribing the detail. An awful lot of work but it would be possible.

However, the real show-stopper IMHO is the wing incidence - I can't think of a neat way of sorting that out other than grafting in that section from another kit (eg Airfix or Hasegawa). In which case why not use the whole fuselage? And in that case why not also use the better nacelles and inner wings? In which case you end up just using the outer wings, maybe the fin and some of the details from the Valom kit. And if you're using the Airfix kit you're putting recessed-detail outer wings on raised-detail inner ones so you're going to have to rescribe the Airfix bits. The Hasegawa would match better, but by the time you've added a Hasegawa B26 to the Valom one you're talking big $$$.

It's a real pity because the kit is apparently beautifully detailed and available in some interesting versions - a nice kit ruined by sloppy research.

Here's the full sad story anyway:

Plane Talking - HyperScale's Aircraft Scale Model Discussion Forum: Valom 1/72 B-26 vs Monogram Snaptite B-26

I've decided instead to use the very basic but accurate Monogram Snaptite kit, the only other one of a short-span B26, and add details from the an Airfix B26C kit (one of classic Airfix' best) I bought for A$5 at a swap meet a few years back. The Monogram kit is long out of production - I've found one in the US on EvilBay for US$22 (good news) but freight back to Oz will be (deep breath...) US$33.90!

 

[Capt. Vick]

Bummer. Great info! Thank you.

 

[Greg Boeser]

Here is the open canopy from the inside.

 

[vikingBerserker]

That's awesome, great info Greg!

 

[MIflyer]

From Detail and Scale

 

[ktank]

From Detail and Scale

Thanks very much - just the photos I've been looking for.

I've since found additional details on the TBM-1 differences:

- there was a .3 machine fuselage-mounted machine gun with a trough in the right-hand cowling
- there was a circular window in the access door
- the starboard side rectangular window wasn't there
- on the port side there was a smaller circular window in place of the rectangular window, one frame back
- there are small rectangular side windows below the trailing edge of the main wing

I've found a few photos if anyone's interested, but the most concise guide is at post 20 in this thread in britmodeller
Italeri Avenger
which references an old KMC 1/48 conversion kit for an early TBM-1. I think they've used a bit of artistic licence in some elements (eg side wall detail) but it gives an overview.

 

[ktank]

I've changed my B-26 plans to go the Valom/Hasegawa route. Reasons being I found a Hasegawa B26B at a reasonable (for Hasegawa!) price and ordered it because I'd found a Valom Midway B-26 going cheap in the Czech Republic. Too bad the latter shop has stuffed up and it was actually out of stock, but I was able to find one here in Australia - at a price.

Anyway, I'll be basing it on the Hasegawa B26B with outer wings, maybe cowlings, tail, spinners, torpedo and mount and other details from the Valom kit. Should give me a much better result than going the Airfix/Monogram root and as a bonus no rescribing needed!

 

[Jimbob]

I worked on the 40th production B-26 back in the late 1990s. It had spinners.

 

[Greg Boeser]

The only B-26s that I have seen without spinners from the original block of 201 were some that were used as trainers in the States, after they were completely overhauled after returning from Alaska in 1943. They were featured in an article in the Martin Star, The Martin Company's in house magazine. A few unusual characteristics were they both carried a scoreboard of six ships, representing the number of ships claimed by Aleutian based Marauders, they had also had their cowlings replaced with the late model "big scoop" cowlings, spinners had been deleted, and at least one had been given a nickname, something unheard of in the Aleutians where the 73rd Bomb Squadron had steadfastly refused to give any of their planes nicknames.

 

[MIflyer]

Roy Grinnel's thrilling painting of a B-26 at Midway shows it with spinners.

 

[Jimbob]

The B-26 that I worked on was one four that ran out of fuel and landed I an open field in Alaska. To my knowledge this aircraft as pictured was in the configuration that it was in 1940.

 

[Greg Boeser]

Well, almost. At the time of the crash it sported unpainted props.