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1942 Midway Island Buffalo and Wildcat


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I see photos/paintings showing both Brewster Buffalos and Grumman Wildcats of the June, 1942, Wake Island fight, WITH the pre war star insigna and centered red dot as well as the white star on the same blue circular background without the red dot. Both can't be correct. Which is it?

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The markings changed in the weeks (if not days) leading up to Midway.

At Coral Sea in early May, the aircraft still had the red dot as well as tail stripes. They were hastily overpainted in the last weeks of May. You'll find darkened rudders where fresh blue gray was used - some planes still had traces of the striping showing thru (I'm thinking of the Vindicators on Midway) As for the red dots the white paint in real life covers as well as it does for us on our models so you'll also see faint hints of the dot on airframes during the battle.

I think the 'ghost' markings are most common on the airframes based on Midway versus the carrier air wings, which probably had better painting equipment aboard.

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I see photos/paintings showing both Brewster Buffalos and Grumman Wildcats of the June, 1942, Wake Island fight, WITH the pre war star insigna and centered red dot as well as the white star on the same blue circular background without the red dot. Both can't be correct. Which is it?

I assume you mean Midway, not Wake Island (which was December 1941), right?

No red dot, no rudder stripes. They were dropped after the Battle of the Coral Sea and before the Battle of Midway. I'm not aware of any June 1942 photos of the Brewster F2A-3's of VMF-221. However, based on earlier VMF-221 Brewsters, and common practice at the time, the side code in black would have read "MF-*' where the * is the individual aircraft number. Prewar, the full side code had been "221-MF-*", but after hostilities began, the squadron designator was removed. Consequently, on the starboard side there would be a big gap between the fuselage roundel (where the "221" had been) and the "MF-*".

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I assume you mean Midway, not Wake Island (which was December 1941), right?

No red dot, no rudder stripes. They were dropped after the Battle of the Coral Sea and before the Battle of Midway. I'm not aware of any June 1942 photos of the Brewster F2A-3's of VMF-221. However, based on earlier VMF-221 Brewsters, and common practice at the time, the side code in black would have read "MF-*' where the * is the individual aircraft number. Prewar, the full side code had been "221-MF-*", but after hostilities began, the squadron designator was removed. Consequently, on the starboard side there would be a big gap between the fuselage roundel (where the "221" had been) and the "MF-*".

So these illustrations are correct then?

http://wp.scn.ru/en/ww2/f/122/3/2/4

http://wp.scn.ru/en/ww2/f/122/3/2/4_b1

http://wp.scn.ru/en/ww2/f/122/3/2/4_b2_a1

F2A-3

Unit: VMF-221, USMC

Serial: MF-15 (BuNo.1553)

Battle of Midway, On 4 June 1942. Flown this aircraft Cpt.William Humbert shot down one Japanese A6M2. Typical camouflage scheme: upper - DS35189, lower - FS36440, inside - FS33481.

(Actually that was Capt. William Humberd)

Edited by dmk0210
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correct - my mistake.

I assume you mean Midway, not Wake Island (which was December 1941), right?

No red dot, no rudder stripes. They were dropped after the Battle of the Coral Sea and before the Battle of Midway. I'm not aware of any June 1942 photos of the Brewster F2A-3's of VMF-221. However, based on earlier VMF-221 Brewsters, and common practice at the time, the side code in black would have read "MF-*' where the * is the individual aircraft number. Prewar, the full side code had been "221-MF-*", but after hostilities began, the squadron designator was removed. Consequently, on the starboard side there would be a big gap between the fuselage roundel (where the "221" had been) and the "MF-*".

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Many thanks for the great info.

The markings changed in the weeks (if not days) leading up to Midway.

At Coral Sea in early May, the aircraft still had the red dot as well as tail stripes. They were hastily overpainted in the last weeks of May. You'll find darkened rudders where fresh blue gray was used - some planes still had traces of the striping showing thru (I'm thinking of the Vindicators on Midway) As for the red dots the white paint in real life covers as well as it does for us on our models so you'll also see faint hints of the dot on airframes during the battle.

I think the 'ghost' markings are most common on the airframes based on Midway versus the carrier air wings, which probably had better painting equipment aboard.

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The 6 months before Pearl Harbor and the six months after saw a ton of changes to USN/USMC tactical paint schemes.

Not 100% sure of exact dates but....

Yellow Wing scheme

Yellow wing scheme with Neutrality stars on the cowls (Atlantic Fleet Birds - not sure if I ever saw a Pacific Fleet airframe with one)

Around June 1941.....

Tactical Gray with white squadron designators

Blue Gray uppers added white designators

Pearl Harbor

Tail stripes added, designators black

'Reprisal Raids' Feb '42

comically large upper wing insignia

Coral Sea (May)

'classic early war' Blue Gray over light gray, insignia in 6 locations full unit designators (2-S-5 - 5th plane on Lexington's Scouting sqn) tail stripes

Midway (June)

Bluegray/gray, insignia 6 locations, no tail stripes - red insignia 'dots' removed, squadron numbers removed from designators (T-5 - the fifth TBD from a 'torpedo' sqn)

Guadalcanal

same as midway but it seems that only the plabne in sqn markings remained - the squadron 'types' began dissapearing from designators

About the only 100% for sure is the nearly complete removal of all red from airframes by Midway - except prop tips on some types were still the tri-color (Blue- Yellow-Red)

See American Modelers can have as almost a bewildering number of schemes over a short time - just like late war Luftwaffe guys!

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So these illustrations are correct then?

http://wp.scn.ru/en/ww2/f/122/3/2/4

http://wp.scn.ru/en/ww2/f/122/3/2/4_b1

http://wp.scn.ru/en/ww2/f/122/3/2/4_b2_a1

(Actually that was Capt. William Humberd)

Yes. Since there are no photos of F2A-3's at the time of Midway, we have to guess at things like the size of the fuselage insignia, but those illustrations look okay.

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