Rare Color Photographs of B-25 Mitchell Medium Bombers from Jeff Wolford.
Planes, Part 5
This B-25J "Mama" from the 321st Bombardment Group stationed at Solenzara, Corsica.
This is B-25J 9D #43-27638 "Briefing Time" of the 340th Bombardment Group, 489th Bombardment Squadron at Alesani, Corsica. I'm not sure why the name "Briefing Time" has been rubbed out on the side of the plane but there is a reference in the 489th Bomb Squadron Book
about the crew chief, Joe Moore changing the plane's name from "Briefing Time" to "Quitting Time" after the war.
Perhaps this picture represents the beginning stages of such a makeover. I discovered that another 340th Bombardment Group B-25J named
"Shirley Ann" has the identical nose art as "Briefing Time" but it is a mirror image suggesting that these nose arts were projected
onto the sides of the planes and then traced. See the photo below taken by my father, Quentin Kaiser, of "Shirley Ann" B-25J 7Z of the 487th Bomb Squadron.
Amazingly, I came across this example of nose art from the University of Arizona Library Military Nose Art Collection which is just like
"Briefing Time" and "Shirley Ann" as seen above. Also, Japanese artist Tetsuro Matsuo has meticulously painted this same noseart on Hasegawa's 1/72 scale Avro Lancaster B.Mk. III model. This seems to have been a very popular one.
This is B-25J 9C #43-27653 "Ruthie" from the 340th Bombardment Group, 489th Bombardment Squadron maintained by
crew chief Ezra Baer at Alesani, Corsica.
This is B-25J "Meet Mrs. Runyon" from the 321st Bombardment Group, 447th Bombardment Squadron.
These great pictures came from color slides purchased by Jeff Wolford about 6 years ago at an auction in a San Francisco hobby shop.
Jeff's brother Rick Wolford, scanned the slides to create these images.
The box of slides was labeled: "B-25 names 1944-45." Jeff Wolford describes the pictures this way: "I have been crazy all my life about airplanes
(especially warbirds). I love collecting memorabilia. I happened to stumble on these at an estate auction. I searched
through books and the internet to try and pinpoint where these were taken. I found your website and bingo! It all seems to be coming together.
Call me a friend of the 57TH WING!." Indeed! Thank you Jeff Wolford!
Hasegawa has a new B-25J model, one of which has been exquisitely made to look like the real
MMR by aviation artist, Mr. Tetsuro Matsuo. The spread in the March 2009 issue of the Japanese modeling magazine Scale Aviation contains the following:
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Scale Aviation magazine, March 2009.
Click on image for link to U.S. source
of the new Hasegawa B-25J model.
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