Hobby Master 1/48 Air Power Series
HA7747
P-51D Mustang "Bad Angel" flown by Lt. Louis E. Curdes, 4th FS, 3rd ACG, Laoag, 1945 
 
General Background
Later in WWII the Allied bombers were flying deep into Germany but suffered tremendous losses because of the lack of range the fighter escorts had. German fighters would wait beyond the range of the Allied fighters and then attack the vulnerable bombers. Once the P-51 called Mustang by the British had the Allison engine replaced with a British Merlin it possessed the high performance that had been lacking. With drop tanks the P-51 had the range to escort bombers all the way to Berlin and back.
 
The Aircraft 
On February 10, 1945 four P-51s with Louis Curdes’ “Bad Angel” and Schmidtke along with LaCroix and Scalley, were returning from an escort mission. LaCroix and Scalley flew over a small Japanese airstrip and began to attack but LaCroix was shot down and landed in the ocean and survived. Curdes circled the down pilot when he spotted a C-47 heading for the same island and fate. To keep that from happening Curdes shot the C-47 down. It landed on the water and all passengers survived. Curdes later married a nurse that was on the C-47.