Strana 28
Col. Robert L. Scott, CO of 23rd FG, 14th AF, Burma, 1942
41-5647, 1Lt. John Landers, 9th FS, 49th FG, Darwin, Australia, 1942
Robert Lee Scott was born on April 12, 1908,
in Waynesboro, Georgia, and graduated from
West Point in 1932. He flew air mail, then
commanded a fighter squadron in Panama and
served as an instructor in Texas and later in
California. By the time the U.S. entered the war,
he was considered too old to be a fighter pilot
at the age of 33, so he converted to B-17s to
join Task Force Aquilla, which was intended to
bomb Japanese soil. He flew one B-17 to India
but found out there that the plan was cancelled.
He became Ops Officer of the ABC Ferry
Command group, flying transport aircraft,
but also made a few flights with Chennault’s
Flying Tigers on P-40. He then managed to
confiscate one P-40E intended for AVG and
named it Exterminator. This is not the aircraft
shown, however, as the one pictured here was
his second P-40E, this one officially assigned
to him, as Scott had since become commander
of the 23rd FG. Sometimes the serial number
11456, i.e., 41-1456, is used in drawings of this
one, but no such P-40 existed, yet it has been
painted in several profiles because Scott
mentioned it himself in his memoirs. He was
probably mistaken, but in any case he related
this number to the confiscated P-40E. During
the flight in which he scored his fourth and fifth
kills, the Exterminator was badly damaged and
never flew again. The symbols of the five kills
were therefore not carried until Scott’s second
P-40E, also of unknown serial number (which
was probably overpainted anyway according to
local custom). In total, Scott achieved 13 kills
during the war. He died on February 26, 2006,
at the age of 98.
John Dave Landers was one of the fighter pilots
who achieved victories in two different theatres
of war during WW II. He scored his first six
kills in the Pacific and added the rest to his
total of 14.5 kills in Europe. Born in Oklahoma
on August 23, 1920, he moved to Texas at the
age of eighteen. He entered the Army Air Cadet
program in April 1941, was commissioned as
a First Lieutenant on December 12 and shipped
to Australia as early as January 1942. He joined
the 9th FS/49th FG after delivering one P-40E
to Darwin on April 3. He scored two kills the
very next day, then added two more victories
on June 14 and July 30 before taking off on
December 26 for his last combat flight in the
Pacific. That day he firstly scored two kills,
then was shot down over New Guinea and had
to find his way through the jungle. In February
1943 he returned to the USA and was sent on
his second operational tour, this time in Europe
(where he later completed a third tour as well).
The first of Lander’s P-40s is portrayed here.
On the left side of the fuselage behind the
cockpit, it bore a drawing of a hawk in a yellow
field, as a mark of affiliation with the Andy
Reynolds Flight, who was the first to use this
decoration. The decals provide the Hawk in
black and dark brown version, as it is not sure
which color was used. On the nose, Skeeter
inscription and the drawing of a mosquito
holding a machine gun were painted. It is not
sure the mosquito was painted on the starboard
side as well.
KITS 02/2025
INFO Eduard28
February 2025