P-51A Mustang 1st Air Commando Group

North American Mustang P-51A, 1st Air Commando Group, India, 1944

There are a few pitfalls and shape problems with the kit. The white stripes are a fiddly masking job, but are at least accurate. The instruction to paint the rear part of the spinner black is dubious (as colour shots seem to show this as Olive Drab along with the rest of the upper fuselage) and harder to execute than need be in the absence of the proper join line. Sink marks are not unexpected in the light of the old and frequently reused moulds, but the inaccuracies in some of the panel lines are harder to excuse, as are other issues such as the short carburettor air intake, the provision of a dagger-style mast where the profiles call for pole, and also the absence of the vital CBI-spec DF-loop and housing for the 1st ACG example. To detail the kit I scratchbuilt this from sprue and wire and also inserted a wheel bay. Drop tanks would be desirable for this kit as nearly all photographs (especially in flight) seem to show 1st ACG aircraft with them.

Decals but no stencils are provided for an RAF Tac Recon Mustang of 2 (Army Co-operation) Squadron in D-Day livery and an Olive Drab and Neutral Grey P-51A of the 1st Air Commando Group, operating out of bases in India in support of Wingate's Chindits. The effect of the fairly translucent FROG decals over the white stripes of the latter is effective when it comes to the serial, with the numbers merging into the stripes in a way reminiscent of the real thing. It is much less so when it comes to the national insignia, which look quite washed-out by comparison.

U.S. Air Force Fact Sheet
BIRTH OF THE AIR COMMANDOS


General Henry H. (Hap) Arnold coined the term "Air Commando" in early 1944. This term referred to a group of Air Corps personnel established in India to support British long-range penetration forces in Burma. Its lineage began with the highly secret Project 9, the organizing and recruiting stages in the United States. Project 9 became the 5318th Provisional Group (Air) in India, which airlifted British General Orde Wingate's Special Forces into Burma during Operation THURSDAY in March 1944. Before the end of the month, it had changed, in name only, to the 1st Air Commando Group (1 ACG). The men of this all-volunteer unit established the high standards of innovation, ingenuity, courage, and resourcefulness to which air commandos have looked ever since.

General Arnold selected Lieutenant Colonels Philip G. Cochran and John R. Allison to develop this radically new concept and unique application of airpower. Could airpower infiltrate, supply, maintain, and exfiltrate a sizeable ground force in the jungles deep behind enemy lines? Their unorthodox tactics proved highly successful, and laid the foundation and provided the justification for special operations refinements beginning in 1961.

The air commando force consisted of C-47 and UC-64 transports, P-51 fighters, L-1 and L-5 utility aircraft, CG-4A and TG-5 gliders, B-25 bombers, and six YR-4 helicopters (two were destroyed enroute). One of these new helicopters executed a combat rescue and is credited with the first combat use of a helicopter. The high priority given Project 9 allowed them to obtain four helicopters for combat evaluation. From a weak but successful beginning, the helicopter evolved into the proven weapons systems of Vietnam.

The variety of aircraft in this small command, the 5318th and then the 1 ACG, was unprecedented at the time. It wasn't until the 1990s when the Air Force began officially organizing composite wings consisting of more than one type of aircraft to meet the anticipated challenges of a changing world. However, the air commandos in Burma, the air commandos of the 1 SOW in the 1960s, and the Air Force special operations forces up through the present day, have operated a composite force and operated it very effectively.