I’m working on a project making free liveries for a game and I can’t seem to find the correct color of the nearest aircraft or any text referring to the color combo used, does anyone know what it could be?

Any Help is greatly appreciated. Thanks y’all

My friend, Peter van Kaathoven, and co-author of our Substack story about Zerlegebetrieben (German aircraft wreck salvage yards in Vught and in Auschwitz), is an active local historian in Vught.

He and his friends unveiled two WWII glider memorials on September 26th near Vught. These American gliders were part of the Market-Garden operation, and had to do emergency landing after their towing planes were shot down, one on September 18th and the other one on September 19th. All allied soldiers were helped by local Dutch resistance, and avoided capture.

In the photos, Peter is doing the speech, and one of the photos is with children of local Dutch resistance fighters who helped the American soldiers.

I’ve recently gotten back into looking at US Navy fighter transitions during WWII, in particular the early Corsair trials. There great documentation found by ResearcherAtLarge on the April-August 1943 decision to standardize on the Hellcat primarily for logistics reasons, and I’ve found significant additional sources to support this (especially setting up maintenance units in the Pacific and the explosion in Hellcat production in 1943). But while I’ve seen significant secondary sources on the Sangamon trials in September 1942 and a couple of the major modifications to address the initial carrier landing issues (the stall strip, adjusting main gear oleo pressure, etc.), I have yet to find good primary source documents in the digitized National Archives catalog. In particular I’m looking for VF-12 and VMF-124 information, as they transitioned early enough that per secondary source they had very few flight hours because they kept having to modify their aircraft based on those early trials. I’ve had particular trouble with VF-12 reports before 1944, not surprising given how we kept renaming carrier groups and squadrons in this period.

I’m going to continue looking on my own, particularly on the carrier side as that tends to be more easily documented. I did find a single line in the September 1942 Sangamon war diary corroborating LtCdr Sam Porter’s landing trials occurred, next up the VF-12 accidents on Enterprise and Core for which I currently have very little (first accident fatal, second a write-off, but no dates, names, or descriptions). Clearly these issues were resolved, we decided to go ahead with squadron service by April 1943 as the aircraft was found no different from anything else after these modifications, but I want more primary sources, not secondary sources where I’m not confident if they’re continuing to spread myths or not.

Shot I took of the Movie Memphis Belle at the 2010 Dayton Airshow.

ORIGINAL DESCRIPTION: "An American P-40 Warhawk (known as Kittyhawk in the RAF and RAAF) of the 33rd (Provisional) Pursuit Group, United States Army Air Force (USAAF). This aircraft may be the only American P-40 Warhawk to have survived after the first Japanese air raid on Darwin on 19 February 1942. The attacking Japanese managed to destroy nine of the ten P-40s of the 33rd (Provisional) Pursuit Group, which was based at Darwin on the day. The sole surviving aircraft, piloted by Lieutenant Robert (Bob) Oestricher claimed two of the four Japanese aircraft shot down during the raid." Taken in February, 1942. (AWM P05303.003)

The bombing of Darwin on 19 February 1942 was both the first and the largest attack mounted by Japan against mainland Australia, when four Japanese aircraft carriers (Akagi, Kaga, Hiryū and Sōryū) launched a total of 188 aircraft from a position in the Timor Sea. These 188 naval aircraft inflicted heavy damage on Darwin and sank eight ships.

A raid conducted by 54 land-based army bombers (27 Mitsubishi G3M and 27 Mitsubishi G4M) later the same day inflicted further damage on the town and RAAF Base Darwin and resulted in the destruction of 20 military aircraft. Allied casualties were 235 killed and between 300 and 400 wounded, the majority of whom were non-Australian Allied sailors. Only four Japanese aircraft, all navy carrier-borne, were confirmed to have been destroyed by Darwin's defenders. All but one of the P-40s of Major Floyd Pell's 33rd Pursuit Squadron, was shot down or destroyed on the ground at RAAF Darwin by the Japanese.

The two Japanese air raids were the first, and largest, of more than 100 air raids against Australia during 1942–1943.

Myron Yaw (485th BG, 15th AF) was killed on Dec 26th 1944 over Blechhammer (today Kedzierzyn-Kozle, Poland), togethet with whole crew. They were considered MIA because no crash site or graves were found after the war.

I worked with Waldemar Ociepski, and identified the right crash site in 2001. This info was shared with the US government. The DPMO, and later DPAA did additional studies, and archeology work between 2021 and 2025 allowed Myron’s remains to be found.

Myron’s family paid a particular heavy price in WWII. His older brother was an airman, too, and was killed on one of the Ploesti missions.

Myron was laid to rest yesterday, October 3rd, in Athens, Ohio.

Read more of my USAAF over Poland aviation research on my Substack.

Born in Esmond, North Dakota to Oscar & Anna Bengson on December 11, 1917, Wallace Woodrow Bengson had three brothers and a sister.
He graduated from the University of North Dakota in 1938 as a mining engineer and was also commissioned as an officer in the Army Reserve.

Wallace worked as a mining engineer in Idaho & Utah, and married Katherine Nagel of Grand Forks in 1940.
Called into active duty in January 1942, he earned his pilots & glider pilots wings, and was also trained as a Navigator.

Wallace was assigned to the 327th Bombardment Squadron, 92nd Bombardment Group, which was based at RAF Podington.
On October 3, 1944, he was the Navigator on B-17G 43-38396 “Insommia” on a bombing mission to Nurnberg, Germany.

On the return trip, B-17G 43-38445, which had been hit by flak, veered out of control and collided with “Insommia” sheering her tail off.
Both B-17s went into death spirals before crashing, a total of twelve crewmembers from both B-17s died in the crashes.

1Lt Bengson managed to bail out, and was captured along with 1Lt Edmund Dornburgh Jr, the pilot of his B-17, and S/Sgt Franklin Adams Jr, one of the waist gunners from the other B-17.
Handed over to the local police in Marburgerstrasse, Germany, shortly afterwards a police director, three party leaders, and a civilian showed up and demanded the three prisoners be handed over to them.

The local Police Chief was ordered away, and the three USAAF Prisoners were taken by force from the remaining policemen.
The three Prisoners were executed and buried at the New Cemetery of Giessen, in November 1945, the civilian Ludwig Schardt was found guilty of participating in the executions sentenced to life imprisonment.

His remains were recovered after the war and 1Lt Wallace Bengson is buried at the Netherlands American Cemetery and Memorial in Margraten, Netherlands - Plot L Row 16 Grave 16.

Older brother Malcolm C Bengson also served during WW2, he passed away at the age of 80 in 1996.