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Re: Into Dusk
RE: Into The Dusk -- Maj. John Moore P-47 "Daring Dottie III"
I'm the nephew of Maj. John T. Moore. His wife was named Dorothy (Dottie). She was my father's sister. I believe they met at Maxwell AFB in Montgomery, Alabama, where she lived until her death.
She died in 2001 and I found a box full of old records where she tried to find information about John Moore's last filght in Oct 1944. He and wingman Benz were on a two plane glide bombing mission when they ran into heavy weather clouds near Ceram Is. Moore radioed that he was descending through the clouds to try to break out down on the deck, below the cloud cover. Benz did a 360 turn (SOP to avoid a mid-air collision in the clouds) and descended. Benz never saw Moore again. He couldn't raise Moore on the radio. Benz never broke out of the clouds and returned to base.
My brother and I are trying to find old photographs of Moore's plane. You mention two references in your post, Lagarto and War_wolf. Did they provide photo or web links?
We are aware of the Corgi model, which blew us away. The model is missing one more rising sun kill flag on the left side of his cockpit, as Moore was officially credited with 7 kills and they have only 6. We do have an old photo of just the Daring Dottie III nose art, before the plane was painted in the distinctive camo pattern in your post and on the Corgi model. We found articles including Moore as a member of a flight with the famous Kearby and the dogfight that ensured against overwhelming odds.
I wish my aunt had seen your art before she died. She never re-married and was somewhat bitter about the cursory search effort the next day which ran into the same bad weather and couldn't complete a thorough search. In less than a month, Moore's Blackjack Squadron moved on to another island airbase closer to Japan. As a college history professor, (with a strong interest in aviation history), she understood the fluid dynamics of war overtaking and passing by the fate of one man, but it didn't make it any easier to accept the loss.
Again, thanks for the artwork and any info source direction you can provide.
Fred
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