Strana 75
BUILT
Col. Robert L. Scott, CO of 23rd FG, 14th AF, Burma, 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.
INFO Eduard
75
February 2025