Sometimes this hobby gives us the opportunity to associate with
some extraordinary people. Meet Ben Griffin. In the Spring of
1945, Lt. Griffin was a young pilot fighting a war and flying for the
4th Fighter Group 336th Fighter Squadron. In April 1945 he was on a
mission to attack the Aerodrome near Prague, Czechoslovakia. He was flying
his P-51D named "Marian" (after his then fiancee), tail code
414277. 414277 had previously been named "Jersey Bounce" and was assigned
to Capt. Don Pierini who had been rotated out. (It is said that it is bad
luck to change the name of an aircraft, and Lt. Griffin was going to find
that out, first hand.) He had strafed the aerodrome and destroyed
several aircraft on the ground. As he pulled up into a slow, climbing
turn, he spotted the German 20 mm anti-aircraft emplacement below him; and they
saw him. He was an easy target and a 20 mm round pierced his engine.
He was losing power and could not climb to bail out. The only other alternative
was to belly land the plane in a nearby field. On the ground below,
watching the aerial battle, was a young Czech lad, Jan Neumann. Lt.
Griffin had seen the crowds below and thought to himself, "don't they know
this is a war and not an air show?" Neumann watched with concern as
the P-51, spewing smoke, looked like it was going to crash into his house.
At the last minute, Lt. Griffin pulled up and turned slightly away, and
belly landed in the field across the road. He banged his forehead
against the gun sight as the plane jerked to a stop, dazing him. As he
climbed out of the cockpit, Neumann watched from a few hundred feet away.
He wanted to run to the pilot, but his mother stopped him. "The Germans are
coming and there might be shooting," she warned. A truck load of
German soldiers arrived and quickly took Griffin prisoner. He was taken to
the aerodrome he had just strafed and interrogated for a few days. Then he
was loaded on a truck with several other American pilots and sent towards
Germany to be interred in a Stalag. Just across the German border, his
captors suddenly released him and his fellow pilots. The Germans knew that Gen.
Pattons forces were just miles away and they wanted to escape. Griffin and
his colleagues walked to the American lines. They hitched rides back
across Belgium and France and eventually arrived back at their base in England,
much to the surprise of all. Griffin had been listed as MIA. Back
home, Marian, the attractive, auburn haired nurse who was waiting for her man to
return from the war, had been told by Ben's mother about Ben's being shot down
and listed as MIA. Her prayers were answered when the telegram arrived
notifying her that Ben was alive, well and back in friendly hands. The
war in Europe ended a few weeks later and Ben returned to the
States and married Marian.
Fast forward 59 years. Jan Neumann grew up and
escaped from Communist Czechoslovakia in 1963 and immigrated to the United
States. After the Germans had captured Griffin, he and his friends played
on and around the P-51 until the Germans moved it to the aerodrome. He
wrote down the name of the pilot stenciled on the side of the aircraft "Lt.
Ben Griffin" and the number on the tail "414277." He always
wondered what had happened to Lt. Ben Griffin. One day he was recounting
the story to his family and his stepson (me) said, "I bet I can find out
what happened to him." Within a few hours of posting the query on
several different we b
sites, the question was answered by aviation artist Wade
Meyers. Ben was alive and well and living in Florida. Jan and Ben
were introduced on the telephone and soon plans were made to spend Thanksgiving
2004 together in Florida. I corresponded with Ben and got the details
from him about the markings on his P-51. I would build a presentation
model of it for him and Jan would present it to him at their meeting at
Thanksgiving.
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The kit I chose was
the Tamiya 1/48 scale P-51D. The overall finish was achieved with various
shades of Alclad II and the rest of the colors are Tamiya acrylic paints.
Since no decals exist for Lt. Griffin's plane, I cobbled everything together
from spare sets of decals. The name "Marian" was hand painted
and the Vargas style nurse and the stenciled name "Lt. Ben Griffin"
were custom printed decals made on my computer. I don't usually put pilots
in my models, but I thought that Lt. Griffin should be in his mount, so I used
the kit figure and posed him in the open cockpit.
This was the most rewarding model
that I ever built. By serendipity, it now resides in the home of a man
who, 60 years ago, flew the real thing.
Rian
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