John Lally's TBM
My 1/48th Accurate Miniatures TBM Avenger kit was begging to be built, and I started looking for the markings of squadron VMTB-143 aircraft for the modeling project. Why I picked this unit is another long story best left for later. In 1945 they were stationed on the USS Gilbert Islands, CVE-107. In volume 2 of John M. Elliott’s The Official Monogram US Navy & Marine Corps Aircraft Color Guide you can find a chart of escort carrier markings (pp. 120-121). These weren’t detailed enough for a model, and I wrote to Mr. Elliott seeking more information. He wrote a nice letter back telling me, essentially, the unit paint schemes on the CVEs weren’t well documented, and what I saw in the book was the best he could offer.
I set out to find the true markings on the internet. Searches for the USS Gilbert Islands, and VMTB-143, turned up several hits for reunion organizations and contacts. Letters went out to all contacts I could find, and responses were prompt and friendly. However, there were no matches to this WW2 period voyage of the USS Gilbert Islands as Korea veterans had responded. Nor were there responses from this era of the squadron as the responders had been in the squadron earlier when it was based on Munda or New Georgia Island. By this time I was six months into the research with no real leads.
Then a miracle happened. One of the reunion people I had written to sent me the name of a squadron pilot from the right era. This turned out to be Captain John ‘Jack’ Lally USMC (retired). Here is a picture of Captain Lally from 2003.
A letter to Captain Lally explaining my search for markings was answered with…”not only was I one of the pilots, but I was the photographic officer too”. Holy Moley! Captain Lally sent me copies of some of his photos, and I’m pleased to show them on this site. To my knowledge these are the only ones you can find on this unit during the 1945 cruise. They show several features that are surprising. Each plane has a large formation number on the side. And there was nose art. I think that’s quite unusual for Avengers. Now I had everything I needed to make an accurate paint scheme.
The model itself is a straightforward build of the beautiful “Okinawa Avenger’ version of the Accurate Miniatures kit. Captain Lally didn’t have pictures of his own plane, P82 GiGi. He worked up a few sketches for me and he agreed the end result is a faithful representation of his bird. Captain Lally advised that his standard war load was four 500 pounders in the bay and eight ‘Holy Moses’ 5 inch rockets under the wings.
The markings came from several sources. The P82, GiGi and small 82s on the cowl ring were done with an ALPS printer. The tiny stencils are from Woody Vondracek’s magnificent Archer Dry Transfers sheet of 1/48th Avenger data stencils. The national insignia came from a third sheet.
Along the way I pieced together a few facts about the squadron and Captain Lally’s service. Thank you Capt Lally for giving me the raw material to tell this story. It can be found in the VMTB-143 page.
