F4U-1A (BuNo 17652) Ens. Frederick J. ‘Big Jim’ Streig, November 1943.

Streig served two combat tours with VF-17 ‘Jolly Rogers’ and finished with 6 confirmed aerial victories. The aircraft depicted is from his first tour, and is a pretty typical F4U-1A and has the early 6501A-0 propeller. It is not clear if the aircraft he flew in his second tour (also White 3) is the same aircraft or not. This aircraft has an antenna mast aft of the cockpit, but the aircraft from his second tour is missing the mast, so it could be a different aircraft, or this airframe had it removed. One interesting detail on this aircraft is the kill flags. Normally stickers with16 rays were used across the theater, but the flags on Streig’s aircraft had 15 rays. Since this is during the first tour, these non-standard flags were most likely stencil painted before the stickers became available to the unit. 

For a full explanation and analysis of the blue surround to the national insignia, see my blog post about this aircraft HERE.

Click the gallery thumbnail below for a larger view.