Seversky P-35 1/72 Scale Model

American P-35A - This is a model of an Army fighter that flew against the Japanese invasion of the Philippines in December 1941. The P-35 won a 1936 competition to replace the Boeing P-26 as the U.S. Army Air Corps primary fighter. When it entered service in 1937, it was the first single-seat U.S. fighter with retractable landing gear and an enclosed cockpit. It's performance was poor, however, and it was already obsolete by the time the last of 76 planes were delivered to the Army in 1938. In 1939 Alexander Seversky, the company's founder, was voted out by the company's stockholders and they reorganized as the Republic Aviation Corporation. Later that year they landed an order from Sweden to build an export version of the P-35, with a more powerful engine and heavier armament. Republic built 60 planes for the Swedes, but in June, 1940, after the fall of France, the U.S. government declared an embargo against further exports of weapons - except to Britain. The remainder of the Swedish P-35 order was taken over by the U.S. Army, which needed planes due to the growing threat of war. They were designated as Republic P-35As, and 48 of them were sent to the Philippines, where they were all lost resisting the Japanese invasion in late 1941 and early 1942. The P-35 was a predecessor to the Republic P-43 Lancer, which was the predecessor to the P-47 Thunderbolt fighter.

More Photos: Left, Right, Top, Front Angle Left, Front Angle Right, Rear Angle Left, Rear Angle Right, Above Left, Above Right

American Aircraft of World War II, David Mondey

Bloody Shambles: Comprehensive Account of Air Operations over South-East Asia, December 1941-February 1942; The Drift to War to the Fall of Singapore, Christopher Shores

December 8, 1941: MacArthur's Pearl Harbor, William Bartsch

Doomed from the Start: American Pursuit Pilots in the Philippines, 1941-1942, William Bartsch

Fire in the Sky: The Air War in the South Pacific, Eric Bergerud

P-35 in Action, Larry Davis