Description

466th Bomb Group Silver Streak Consolidated B-24D Model

Fly with the 466th Bomb Group Silver Streak in this handcrafted Consolidated B-24D Model. Each model is carved from wood and hand painted to provide a unique piece that will always be treasured.  This is an assembly ship, meaning a still flyable but retired bomber would be used to form the formation.

• Length – 11.5 inches
• Wingspan – 17.5 inches
• Made from Mahogany
• US Veteran-Owned Business
• Officially Licensed by Lockheed Martin
• The product is not intended to be used by children 12 years and younger.

LOCKHEED MARTIN®, B-24 Liberator®, associated emblems and logos, and body designs of vehicles are either registered trademarks or trademarks of Lockheed Martin Corporation in the USA and/or other jurisdictions, used under license by Squadron Nostalgia LLC

The group was constituted as the 466th Bombardment Group (Heavy) and activated on 1 August 1943 at Alamogordo Army Air Field, New Mexico with the 784th, 785th, 786th and 787th Bombardment Squadrons assigned.[2][3][4][5] Personnel started training with Consolidated B-24 Liberators at Kearns Army Air Field in Utah at the end of August 1943, remaining there until late November when the unit retr\urned to Alamogordo. In February 1944 they moved to Topeka Army Air Field Kansas for a week before beginning the trip overseas to England.[2]

The ground echelon sailed from New York on the RMS Queen Mary on 28 February 1944. The air echelon took the southern ferry route and arrived at RAF Attlebridge England, in March 1944.[2] At Attlebridge the group became part of Eighth Air Force. The 466th was assigned to the 96th Combat Bombardment Wing. Their group tail code was “Circle-L”.

The 466th began operations on 22 March 1944 by participating in a daylight raid on Berlin. The group attacked targets including marshalling yards at Liège and Saarbrücken, airfields at St Trond and Chartres, a repair and assembly plant at Reims, factories at Brunswick, oil refineries at Bohlen, aircraft plants at Kempten, mineral works at Hamburg, a synthetic oil plant at Misburg, a fuel depot at Dülmen, and aircraft engine works at Eisenach.

Other operations included attacking pillboxes along the coast of Normandy on D-Day, 6 June 1944, and afterwards striking interdiction targets behind the beachhead. It bombed enemy positions at Saint-Lô during Operation Cobra, the Allied breakthrough in July 1944. It hauled oil and gasoline to Allied forces advancing across France in September. It attacked German communications and transportation during the Battle of the Bulge from December 1944 to January 1945 and bombed the airfield at Nordhorn in support of Operation Varsity, the airborne assault across the Rhine on 24 March 1945.

The 466th flew its last combat mission on 25 April 1945, striking a transformer station at Traunstein. During combat operations, the 785th Bomb Squadron flew 55 consecutive missions without loss. The group flew 232 combat missions with 5,762 sorties dropping 12,914 tons of bombs. They lost 47 aircraft in combat.

The group redeployed to the United States during June and July 1945. The air echelon departed Attlebridge in mid-June 1945. The ground units sailed from Greenock on the RMS Queen Mary on 6 June 1945. They arrived in New York on 11 July 1945. The group was then established at Sioux Falls Army Air Field South Dakota in July and was redesignated the 466th Bombardment Group, Very Heavy in August 1945 and was equipped with Boeing B-29 Superfortress aircraft. The group was transferred to Pueblo, Colorado, and then later to Davis–Monthan Field, Arizona for Superfortress training and programmed for deployment to the Pacific Theater. With the end of the war the Group was inactivated on 17 October 1945.[2]