Northrop P - 61 Black Widow Aircraft Recognition Poster PLA North China 1948 - 50
Item History & Price
| Reference Number: Avaluer:89601 | Poster: Aircraft Recognition |
| Country/Region of Manufacture: China |
Original Vintage Chinese Military TrainingPoster (Wall Chart)Printed by the North China Military Region Command(华北军区司令)Ca. 1948-1950Approximate size: 39 x 54 cm (15 x 21 inches)Northrop P-61 Black Widow(shown with USAF markings, even though this aircraft was withdrawn from service before the Air Force was formed as a separate branch in 1947) The Northrop P-61 Black Widow, named for the American spider, was the first operational U.S. warplane designed as a night fighter, an...d the first aircraft designed to use radar. The P-61 had a crew of three: pilot, gunner, and radar operator. It was armed with four 20 mm Hispano M2 forward-firing cannon mounted in the lower fuselage, and four.50 in M2 Browning machine guns mounted in a remote-controlled dorsal gun turret. P-61s of the China-Burma-India (CBI) Theater were responsible for patrolling a larger area than any night-fighter squadrons of the war. The P-61 arrived too late in the CBI Theater to have any significant impact, as most Japanese aircraft had already been transferred out of the CBI Theater by that time in order to participate in the defense of the Japanese Homeland. P-61B-15NO c/n 1234 AAF Ser. No. 42-39715 is on static display inside the Beijing Air and Space Museum (BASM) at Beihang University (BUAA) in Beijing, China. This aircraft was manufactured by Northrop Aircraft, Hawthorne CA and accepted by the USAAF on 5 Feb 1945. It was sent to Newark, NJ for deployment 16 Feb 1945 and departed the US 26 Feb 1945. It was then assigned to the Tenth Air Force, China Burma India Theater of Operations, 427th NFS 3 March 1945. At the end of the war the Communist Chinese came to one of the forward airfields in Sichuan Province and ordered the Americans out, but instructed them to leave their aircraft. It has been reported that three P-61s were taken and sometime later the Chinese wrecked two of them. P-61B-15NO c/n 1234 was stricken by the USAAF on December 31, 1945. The North China Military Region lead and directed the People's Armed Forces of North China during the War of Liberation (Chinese Civil War) period and the early days of the People's Republic of China. On May 20, 1948, in order to transition the War of Liberation from a strategic defensive to a strategic offensive, the Jin-ji Military District and Shanxi-Hebei-Shandong-Henan military Region combined to form the North China Military Region. The North China Military Region was renamed the Beijing Military Region on February 11, 1955. The following paragraphs are quoted from weaponsandwarfare.com "At the beginning of the Chinese Civil War the Nationalist Air Force – with a reported strength of 1, 000 aircraft of all types – had complete air superiority over the Communists. The Nationalists were equipped with a mix of modern US-supplied aircraft like the P-51D Mustang and captured Japanese types like the KI-43 and KI-61 fighters. Bombers were again left-overs from the pre-1945 air force, including the US Mitchell bomber and the Soviet Tupolev SB-2 light bomber. By 1948 the Nationalist Air Force had been reduced to a fraction of its 1945 strength but had one medium and one heavy bomber group, with a mixture of aircraft: 29 US-supplied B24 Liberators, 23 B25 Mitchells, plus a handful of ex-Japanese planes like the KI-48 were also still in service. In addition the Nationalists had 36 Mosquito dive bombers which served in a composite group with four B25s. There were four fighter groups with a total of 139 P-51Ds and 29 older P47s and four of the obsolete P40s dating back to the pre-1941 era. The transport wing of the Nationalist Air Force, which was to prove vital in supplying isolated garrisons, had two groups with a total of 125 C46s and 45 C47 Dakotas." "The Communists had been supplied by the Soviet Union with a small number of captured Japanese aircraft after 1945. These included at least one example of each of the Ki43, Ki44, Ki55, Ki61 and Ki84 fighters as well as Ki30 and Ki51 attack aircraft. They also received a few Ki48 medium bombers and various trainers and reconnaissance aircraft. Communist crews were trained at an aviation school in Yenan and were joined by `volunteer’ pilots from the Japanese Imperial Air Force. During the civil war a number of Nationalist pilots defected to the Communists with their aircraft and these were then sent back into action after the red star insignia had been added to their planes. In 1949 the Communists captured 1, 400 Nationalist aviation technicians in Shanghai, and used them to open a flying school for the PLA." Shipped rolled in a mailing tube.Will combine shipping for multiple posters. Northrop P-61 Black Widow Aircraft Recognition Poster PLA North China 1948-50
