1:72 Strafers over New Guinea

Low-level raids over New Guinea

The fighting for New Guinea forced a special way of using bomber units. Attacks from high altitude against camouflaged airstrips in the jungle missed their mark, because the crews often never even glimpsed the target, and so the American formations came down to the ground. They flew over the treetops so that the anti-aircraft defenses would register them only at the last moment, and hosed the target with fire as they came in.

To make that possible, the aircraft went through field modifications. Whole batteries of machine guns were fitted into the noses of medium bombers, the glazing where the navigator sat vanished under sheet metal, and a conventional bomber turned overnight into a heavily armed attack aircraft. It was an improvisation born in workshops right at the front, and only once it had proved itself did the manufacturers take it up in series production.

The bomb that waits

Alongside it came parachute-retarded bombs, which had time to scatter before the attacker himself left the area. Without them a low-level raid would have endangered the crew as much as the target, because at speed near the ground there is nowhere to turn away. The combination of the two proved itself against airfields and against shipping alike and became the trademark of the American squadrons in the southwest Pacific.

The nose art on these machines was among the most exuberant of the whole war, and in a small scale it turns into a test of patience. Apply it to a perfectly smooth surface and watch the symmetry of the two sides; artwork set unevenly shows on a finished model more than anything else.