USS Lexington

A Wehrmacht joke making the rounds after D-day. “If you see camouflaged planes, it’s the RAF. If you see silver planes, it’s the Americans. If you see no planes, it’s the Luftwaffe.”

 

By that time they had lots of planes, but no gasoline and few pilots. They were pumping the planes out like sausages, but most of them were just static displays.

 

Not to mention that some of the new pilots were 16 YO boys...

 

More photos of the aircraft. They do look to be in very good condition due to the very deep water location. The Wildcat was confirmed by the U.S. Navy to have been Admiral Gayler's Wildcat.


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Those photos are incredible! I can't get over how good those planes look...paint barely faded and just some silt and other stuff here and there. Mindblowingly cool! Thanks for posting those...

 

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I have said for years the Battle of Midway has got to be one of the most important battles in our history.

 

I feel that we were laced with luck as well as commitment and brave action. We caught the Japanese in a bad situation trying to change the offensive loads on their airplanes and pressed home the attacks in spite of terrible losses of our planes and men. The Battle of Midway bloodied the nose of our adversary and stopped their offensive in the South Pacific. The flabby and complacent American showed what was really within when challenged. I hope that it is still there. Yamamoto thought that after a few defeats the Americans would sue for peace. A little bit wrong there, pal. No defeats, a few set backs, but no defeats. I often think about the picture of the Japanese cruiser, Mogami, burnt and smoking , dead in the water, with the wreckage of a U.S. Navy attack plane on the aft gun turret.

 

Love those really early markings on the aircraft on the Lex. Do not see too many restored aircraft with markings that early.

 

The degree of preservation after 76 years is just amazing! The red one must be for a bomb hit on (presumably) a ship.

 

here is my radio control 1/4 scale wildcat modeled after the ones that served on the lexington. i had the honor of being asked to fly it on ford island, pearl harbor for an airshow anniversary of the battle of midway. my model has a 250cc 4 stroke radial for power. barry
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No UV rays / sunlight to fade the paint, etc.
Plus the cold temps.

 

Barry- Without the guy standing in the background, I would have thought your model was the real thing. She looks great, down to the flaps.

 

Thx. I love to scale my models down to the details.

 

This just in --

http://www.foxnews.com/science/2018/03/20/wreck-uss-juneau-famous-for-deaths-5-sullivan-brothers-discovered-in-pacific.html

 

That is a beautiful and ,for once, an accurate rendition of an early F4F. I'm interested in the retraction mechanism of the main gear. It has to pretty good and strong to withstand some hard landings. Not a simple mechanism.

 

KEWL

Fighter Squadron 3, with KILLS

 

A good documentary on the Wildcat.

 

bob, the landing gear or robust and fully scale. the only difference is there is a huge air cylinder hidden to pull the gear up. a valve releases the air and gravity lowers them they go slightly over center and rare earth magnets are embedded in the struts so they cant pop over center.
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That is just amazing! One question. In the first photo, it looks as if the model has a two rather than three-bladed prop. Is that correct for early Wildcats?

 

Thanks. If it was built from a kit, what kind? Really an amazing example of modeling nowadays. Butch O'Hare would have loved this!

 

I wonder how many original WWII planes are left- the actual ones that had kills, that dropped the bombs etc. A GTO with real race history is worth a fortune, what would one of these planes be worth? Either way they should be left as they are, but so glad we at least have the pictures.

 

the wildcat always had a 3 blade prop. i have both for my model, but the performance is far better with the two blade prop. the kit started life as a fischer kit from Germany.