History

This book is part of an excellent series on the course of World War II in the air, and although it is a little more inclusive than the title implies, it covers the action between the 3^rd Kokutai and the Tainan Kokutai, Japanese Navy units equipped with Mitsubishi A6M-2 Zero Sens, Mitsubishi G4M-2’s, and Nakajima C5M2 reconnaissance types and based in the former Netherlands East Indies, and the U.S. Army 49^th Pursuit Group, (Later 49^th Fighter Group), armed primarily with Curtiss P-40E “Warhawk” fighters, and base in Northern Australia around Darwin. The Japanese were attempting to destroy Allied installations in Northern Australia, while the Americans were attempting to defend them. In general, the Japanese were probably better trained and more experienced than the Americans, but given the conditions of combat, the outcomes were fairly even.

The Weathering Magazine is one of three magazine series published by the AMMO/ Mig Jimenez Company. This division of Mig Jimenez’s modeling products empire also publishes two other magazines are: Weathering Magazine: Aircraft and Special Editions. Special Editions are primarily focused on one, specific subject. The Weathering Magazine: Abandoned. Is the thirtieth edition in this series and encompasses six, specific How-To articles on a variety of subjects.

Those subjects are :

In Part One, I alluded to some issues I had with the windows in the kit so I’ll start with that. The portholes had acetate to represent the glass, which turned out to be larger than the flat spots they were intended to nestle into, so most had to be trimmed down. The same needed to be done for the ones that were in the deck.

Although the deck is meant to be screwed down, I elected to glue it as well, and discovered a section on each side of the deck that had flash which I hadn’t caught, and I paid for that by having to remove a glued-up deck just for that purpose, but in the end it turned out OK. Word to the wise: make sure that’s cleaned up before putting the deck on.

The Setting

On June 25, 1950, President Harry Truman was flying back to Washington, D.C. to deal with the outbreak of war in Korea. He thought, “In my generation, this was not the first occasion when the strong attacked the weak. I recalled some earlier instances: Manchuria, Ethiopia, and Austria. I remembered how each time that the democracies failed to act, it encouraged the aggressor to keep going ahead. Communism was acting in Korea just as Hitler, Mussolini and the Japanese had acted, ten, fifteen, twenty years earlier . . . If this was allowed to go unchallenged it would mean a third world war.”

In January 1945, the collapse of the German front along the Siegfried Line led to a large-scale dissolution of German combat forces and capability. Pressed hard by Allied forces advancing eastward, German units often found themselves trapped west of the Rhine River. With his eye on history, US Lt. Gen. George S. Patton, Jr. was determined to be the first leader since Napoleon to make an assault crossing of the Rhine. The most logical crossing-place was at Mainz, as it served as a major railroad logistical link from west to east. However, Patton was aware that this would be obvious to the Germans, and therefore he and his staff made rapid plans for another site at Nierstein and Oppenheim, about 12 miles south of Mainz.