B-25 Mitchell
The North American B-25 Mitchell is one of my favourite aircraft. I’ve got a thing for twin engined propellor aircraft. I’ve also got a thing for twin tail aircraft. This has both of those things, plus a gullwing, it’s seen versatile use in every theatre of the second world war, it’s had many interesting paintschemes and hey it’s been used by the Dutch Airforce and ML-KNIL. The first two artworks I’ve done with the B-25 have both been for the calendar on dutch aviation. I plan to do many more !
This first piece is called: “Animo libre dirigimur, a B-25 Ramrod under attack”. Animo libre dirigimur translates as: “We are guided by the mind of liberty”, the squadron Motto of 320 Sqn (Dutch), 2nd TAF. Around D-Day, 320 Squadrons main targets were communication centres and enemy airfields, one of those Ramrod missions is depicted here. The escort of Spitfires is already engaging Focke-Wulf 190A-8s and the top escort is streaking down to assist.
This image on Aviation Arthouse.
The second piece is called:“The Flying Dutchman”. This one show one of the five early dedicated strafers of the ML-KNIL 18sqn. Due to heavy losses during attacks on Japanese shipping, it became clear that using “strafers” would be a good idea. 5 Mitchells had the 4 gun painted over nose and side blisters in 1943, the other 15 aircraft at the time also got additional guns with the side blisters. This specific aircraft, the N5-145 had only flown for 9 months with 18 Sqn when it crashed during landing, but managed to rack up quite an impressive amount of mission markers during that time. It was nicknamed: “The Flying Dutchman”.
This image on Aviation Arthouse.