casey jones
December 17th, 2008, 07:57
I received the airplane record card on Lt Col Doolittle's Army P-40. This card shows the history of the airplane from the day it came from the Curtiss factory until its unhappy end on April 28 1942. Doolittle used this ship as his personal mount flying from Washington to Chicago to Mpls and return while planning the Tokyo Raid. This card uses the FY and month as to when the plane was released from Curtiss..so I am guessing that the ship's serial number was 40-324, that it was built in 1939? Or 1940? No photograhs have been found yet of it...Doolittle received it as a Major before his promotion to Lt Col. He entered the AAF as a Reserve Officer in 1940...so maybe the P-40 was painted silver or OD, the AAF I think began making the color change to OD in 1941? 40-324 was based at Selfridge Field after Doolittle left for Eglin Field in March 1942, it then stayed at Patterson Field for a long time...then it was transfered to Tusganeege AL for training pilots, on April 28 1942 2nd Lt Mac Ross took off in 40-324 for a routine training flight...something went wrong and he baled out.
Cheers
Casey
Cheers
Casey