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  P-39N "Nanette" Nose Number 74 Squadron Letter N
USAAF
5th AF
35th FG
41st FS

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5th AF April 1943

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Herb Rosen 1943

Aircraft History
Built by Bell in Buffalo, New York. Delivered to the U.S. Army Air Force (USAAF) as P-39N Airacobra serial number unknown. Disassembled and shipped overseas to the South West Pacific Area (SWPA) and reassembled.

Wartime History
Assigned to the 5th Air Force (5th AF), 35th Fighter Group (35th FG), 41st Fighter Squadron (41st FS) "The Flying Buzzsaws". Assigned to pilot Edwards Park Nickname "Nanette" with squadron letter N and nose number 74. During the middle of 1943, this Airacobra operated in New Guinea until at least early 1944. A single aircraft silhouette was painted on the left side of the nose indicating Park's single aerial victory claim on March 4, 1944 when he claimed a Ki-61 Tony piloting a P-47D Thunderbolt.

Edwards Park writes in Nanette:
"Nanette was the nickname of the author's P-39 Airacobra, a plane that he describe the type as "She is beautiful and graceful at her best, while quirky and difficult to handle when not lovingly handled." The metaphor of women and machine drives the author's descriptions of his love affair with this quirky mate. "Even the planes unique vibrations, like when the P-39's massive 37mm nose cannon is fired has a mild sexual stimulating feeling for the pilot who is nearly straddling the gun."

On November 7, 1943 while parked in a revetment at Nadzab Airfield, destroyed during a Japanese air raid by Ki-21 Sally bombers.

Nanette by Edwards Park pages 180, 182:
"On the next day 18 Japanese Betty Bombers [Ki-21 Sally] came high over Nadzab and dropped their load of antipersonnel 'daisy cutters' with devastating accuracy... and walked toward a thick black column of smoke fed by savage flames in one of our revetments. Nanette's revetment. She had received a direct hit. It took her half an hour to burn... Two other planes had been damaged; the alert shack was shredded by shrapnel; six pilots discovered that they had been nicked; and one crew chief had become a soggy red bundle of clothes at the bottom of a bomb scorched slit trench. It was the crew chief for [P-39 Airacobra] number 75 - the same man who had helped me get out of it when I had been shot up in that big raid on Moresby, all those months ago."

Relatives
Lisa Park (daughter)

References
Nanette page 180, 182
Angels Twenty by Edwards Park
Thanks to Lisa Park and Edward Rogers for additional information

Contribute Information
Are you a relative or associated with any person mentioned?
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Last Updated
March 7, 2023

 

Tech Info
P-39
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