120mm Verlinden Productions

Bandit 2 O'Clock B-17 Gunner

by Douglas K. L. Chan 

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  D-Day 60th Anniversary - June 6th 2004    

 

One day I saw this kit in a model shop. Waaa, this is interesting and meaningful, even to a modeler who usually build aircraft models.

This is in a scale of 120 mm, with a section of B-17. The kit comes mostly of resin parts, with a photo-etched set for the .50 gun and the window. Also, there are copper wire and PVC tubings for the the electrical wire, and oxygen hose, etc..

This is a black and white photo of the waist gunner position in a real B-17.

Click on image below to see larger image

The only modification I did was to replace the resin kit floor by plywood and to add an electrical terminal box for heating.

I post this on the 60th anniversary of D-Day to make a tribute to all those brave men who fought for our freedom. They sacrificed their lives in those meaningless wars. I hope everyone, especially those politicians, would look back in history and realize how silly it will be to go to war.

Click on images below to see larger images

My hat off to them. Lest we forget.

Douglas

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If you are able

save for them a place

inside of you

and save one backward glance

when you are leaving

for the places they can

no longer go.

 

Be not ashamed to say

you love them

though you may

or may not have always.

 

Take what they have left

and what they have taught you

with their dying

and keep it with your own.

 

And in that time

when men decide and feel safe

to call the war insane

take one moment to embrace

those gentle heroes you left behind.

 

By Maj. Michael Davis O' Donnell, 1 Jan 1970, Dak To Vietnam

Photos and text © by Douglas K. L. Chan