MAQUETTE À MONTER - Marine Corps Bomber SB2U-3 Vindicator VMSB-241, Battle of Midway Accurate Miniatures | N° 480202 | 1:48 **LIKE NEW INSIDE UNOPENED**

Characteristics

Description

June 5, 1942: At 6:30, a Midway-based PBY reported, "Sighted 2 battleships bearing 256 degrees, distance 125 miles, course 268 degrees, speed 15." Two minutes later the PBY added, "Ships damaged, streaming oil." Marine Aircraft Group 22 sent up two flights from VMSB-241, six Dauntlesses under Captain Marshall A. Tyler and six Vindicators led by Captain Richard E. Fleming, to attack the two ships. The ships turned out to be the heavy cruisers Mikuma and Mogami, which had been damaged in a collision the night before. The Marine pilots spotted the oil slick left by the damaged cruisers forty-five minutes later, and followed it to the Mogami and Mikuma. Tyler led his six Dauntlesses into an attack on Mogami amid heavy anti-aircraft fire. The Marines dropped their bombs, scoring a few near-misses. At 8:40, minutes after Tyler's attack, Fleming led his Vindicators out of the sun from 4000 feet, through heavy flak from the Japanese ships, against the Mikuma. As Fleming dove, his airplane was hit forward and smoke began pouring out of his engine. In spite of being hit, he pressed his attack home without faltering, retaining the lead in his division, and dropped his bomb. Captain Leon M. Williamson, a pilot in Fleming's flight, saw Fleming's engine smoking, but acknowledged that Fleming kept his plane steady during the dive, and released his bomb. At the moment of his pull-out, his plane burst into flames and crashed into the afterdeck of the Mikuma. The crash started a fire that was sucked into the cruiser's starboard engine room air intakes, suffocating the engineers. At the cost of his life, Captain Fleming insured that VMSB-241's final attack on the Japanese fleet achieved its utmost. This was the last Marine Corps action in the Battle of Midway.

More to read about the KIT here, thanks to scalemates, a Belgian Scale modeling database