Hasegawa 1/Egg F-14 Tomcat

[aur0ra145]

Howdy all! Me and the wife are doing a buddy build. I'm building Hasegawas F-14 Tomcat Egg Plane and she's building a Tiger Models F4U-1 Corsair. Both will be in Jolly Roger livery. I know the F4U-1 doesn't qualify, so I'll try and keep this thread Tomcat-centric.

Some of the following is from personal knowledge, some shamelessly stolen from Wikipedia.

VF-17 was established on 1 January 1943, at NAS Norfolk, with Lieutenant Commander John T. "Tommy" Blackburn as its commander. It was the second Navy fighter squadron to receive the F4U-1 Corsair and the most successful of them all.

Originally assigned to USS BUNKER HILL, the Navy decided that the Corsair wasn't fit for landing on a carrier. The problem was that the pilots couldn't see over the engine cowl to visually land on the carrier and numerous technical problems with early Corsairs. So the Jolly Rogers became a land based squadron flying from the Solomon Islands for their first tour.

On a side note, the British flying their Corsairs came up with the approach turn. Basically you fly an always turning approach to the ship so you can always see out the side where the ship is and you don't lose sight of the ship until the last few seconds before landing.

In its two tours of duty in the Solomon Islands, VF-17 had 152 aerial victories and produced 11 aces. VF-17 finished its combat tour on 10 May 1944, and was equipped with the F6F-5 Hellcat moved to the USS Hornet. The squadron amassed 161 victories, and produced 12 aces. Overall, the two combat tours of VF-17 were credited with 313 victories, the most of any US Navy squadron.

It should be noted that the lineage of the Jolly Rogers has passed through several squadrons Starting with VF-17. The next squadrons to take over the Jolly Roger lineage were (in order), VF5B, VF-61, VF-84, VF-103, VFA-103. Generally, when a Jolly Roger squadron was deactivated another squadron would take over the lineage, traditions, logo and toasts. However, you can see where some squadrons combined their traditions. Biggest one I can think of are the vagabond stripes on the side of the jet. Those were originally from VF-84 Vagabonds. They kept the stripes when they took over the Jolly Roger name. The vagabond stripes have been on Jolly Roger jets ever since.

The Legend of Jack Ernie:
ENS Jack Ernie was a pilot with VF-17. Over the skies of Okinawa, Ensign Jack Ernie's aircraft began losing engine oil. In an attempt to disengage from the fight with his crippled Corsair, Jack was attacked by two Japanese Zeroes. Without full power of his engine available, Jack was at too great a disadvantage. He fought valiantly, splashing one Zero before being overcome by the second. As his Corsair plummeted earthward, he make two transmissions; "Skipper, I can't get out!" followed by a short pause and then, "Remember me with the Jolly Rogers!"

For his actions that day, Ensign Ernie was posthumously awarded the Navy Cross. His remains were not recovered until many years after VF-17 had been decommissioned and the the Skull and Crossbones insignia had been adopted by VF-84. After it's commissioning in 1959, in an attempt to trace the history of it's squadron insignia, the story of Ensign Ernie was revealed to VF-84 by Jack's family and, upon their suggestion and consent, Jack's skull and femurs were encases in glass and presented to the squadron, thereby fulfilling Jack's last request of being "remembered with the Jolly Rogers."

Although Ensign Ernie was a member of the original VF-17 Jolly Rogers, his legend remains intact with the current VFA-103 Jolly Rogers. As was a tradition in VF-84, Ensign Ernie's name is a permanent fixture on the VFA-103 officer's precedence list and social roster, and his glass-encased skull and femurs remain on display in the squadron spaces and at all command functions.

On the left is a reproduction of the original Jolly Roger patch designed by Harry Hollmeyer. Right is a current day Jolly Roger patch.





Jack Ernie

[digger303]

Interesting background story on the Jolly Rogers. Ernie was a brave man