Anybody know the history of this C-47 with kill marking ?

[kfields]

My second post!!
I purchased the WWII photo album of a Lawrence Hudnall about 8 years ago. It is jam packed with hundreds of photos, many of aircraft (C-47's, P-38's, P-40's, gliders, etc).
Based on the photographs, it is highly suggestive that Mr Hudnall worked as part of the ground crew at an airbase somewhere in Burma or possibly India.
The very first photo in the album is of this C-47. There's gotta be an interesting story behind how this C-47 received credit for downing a Japanese plane!
Does anybody know anything about it?

Thanks!
Kim




By the way, I think that is Mr Hudnall in the cockpit and not the pilot.

[Russ Blow]

Found this article includes a picture as well....

http://home.comcast.net/~cbi-theater-5/ ... 22444.html

C-47 OUT-WITS JAPANESE ZERO TO WIN IN AERIAL BATTLE

UPPER ASSAM BASE - Visitors to this base often stare in amazement when they pass No. 721, a C-47 Air Transport Command plane with a
history. For on its blunt nose is something seldom seen except on fighters and bombers - a miniature Japanese flag indicating one enemy plane accounted for.
This unusual achievement was rung up not long ago over Burma, when the supposedly helpless transport plane was attacked by one of the Japanese killers of the air. Thinking fast, Lts. Charles (Pat) Lawton of Berkeley, Calif., and George Laben, of Indiana, at the controls, went into a power dive from 4,000 feet to tree-top level in an effort to break away.
This did not succeed, for the Japanese followed them leisurely, waiting for the right moment to strike like a hunting hawk at a fat chicken. But, unknown to the Japanese, the transport was heading for a valley which dropped sharply for 500 feet just on the other side of a ridge.
The transport hopped the ridge and dropped several hundred feet into the valley, just as the Zero dove for the kill. The hapless Japanese pilot, unaware that the valley existed, was unable to come out of his dive after he realized the trick that had been played on him, and flattened his plane (and himself) like a pancake on the ridge.
So that's how innocent-looking No. 721 joined the killer class, and that's why its crew points proudly to the Japanese flag on its nose, put there to commemorate perhaps the only victory in the air of an unarmed transport plane over a deadly Zero.

[kfields]

Thanks Russ...that nails it!

Kim

[Chris Brame]

Welcome to WIX, Kim - hope you can share some more of the Hudnall album with us!

[hang the expense]

Would love to see the p-40 stuff for sure.

[kfields]

Will do.
I'll start posting some photos this weekend by plane category.

Kim

[Shay]

Great pic Kim. From a modeler perspective anyone have a Serial Number for No.721??

Thanks

Shay
____________
Semper Fortis

[Chris Brame]

From a modeler perspective anyone have a Serial Number for No. 721??

Out of nine (!) possible serials ending in 721, this is the only one with a posted history that looks correct:

(41-)38721 (c/n 6180) to USAAF Dec 28, 1942 - 10th AF, India Jul 12, 1943. To spares Sep 16, 1944.