Squadron formation?

I found a pretty good article on this in Fine Scale Modeler's "Modeling The Second World War" published in January or so of 1996. The B-24 squardons were having such a difficult time getting organized they came up with Assembly Ships. These aircraft would take off with group and give them a visual point of reference to assemble prior to heading to the target. Once the group was assembled they would return to base rather than continue the mission. The article used as reference Roger Freeman's book "The Mighty Eighth".

They were painted with high visibility colors such as yellow, red, white, and probably whatever was handy. Geometrical shapes such as circle and triangles were used with the occasional face painted on for good measure.

If you like I can scan the article and email it to you.

Dave

Those were assembly ships. Microscale used to have decal sheets for some of those planes... I seem to remember a all-white aircraft with red, blue and green polka dots..!?

Here's a site with a couple of pics of assembly ships

http://www.controltowers.co.uk/H-K/Hardwick_the_airplanes_2.htm

A book called "The Mighty Eighth" by Roger Freeman (Doubleday, 1970) has a color plate in the back with side views of 12 formation assembly B-24s. They have checkerboards, stripes, lightning flashes, about every scheme imaginable. The birds from the 458th, 489th and 491st all have polka-dots, while the one from the 467th has large yellow circles outlined in red.

Most of Freeman's Eight Air Force volumes have photos of various assembly ships. All his photos are of B-24's, however. There are a couple of examples of B-17 assembly ships as well. These aircraft were all "WW" or War-Weary planes; that is, they had a large amount of airframe flight hours and were deemed unsuitable for combat, although they were still airworthy. I'm not sure, but I believe that one of the old Aeromaster sheets had at least one assembly ship on it. Can anyone out there confirm that? - Ed

The old Arco/Aircam book on the 24 from the 70s had profiles of assembly ships. I guess that would be an ebay search item, though.

Sorry for the delay in responding, just ended a 16 hour shift. Thx very much for the info and leads, Weebles feel free to email the article to me,sounds interesting. Hopefully the revell monogram B-24 will be coming out soon, I think it would be a interesting change from the standard green, camo or bare metal varieties I've been doing lately.

I'll send them to you in jpg format. send me your email address.
Dave