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Akira Watanabe Robert Taylor Aviation Art

2020-12-01T06:41:18+00:00 ·

Zero Encounter by Robert Taylor
When the first US aircraft landed at the captured airstrip on the island of Guadalcanal on 12 August 1942, there was still heavy ground fighting within 3,000 yards of the airfield. A few days later it was named Henderson Field, after Major Lofton R. Henderson who led the Marine dive-bombers at Midway. The name of this small airfield is synonymous with the war in the South Pacific and it became home to some of the greatest Marine pilots who took part in the air fighting in that theatre.
When Robert Taylor was asked to complete a painting to commemorate the Cactus Airforce - the Marine Air Force at Guadalcanal - as part of a project for the Nimitz Museum in Texas, it seemed that with all the many choices of composition available, the most obvious should be that which included the airfield itself. 
Knowing that two famous US Marine pilots and two famous Japanese Zero pilots were to be involved in the project, he looked for a suitable way to incorporate all this together. A dog-fight over Henderson Field seemed the logical answer.
In his remarkably detailed painting, Robert Taylor brings to life an episode which involved some of the most ferocious and sustained aerial dogfighting of World War II.
A Japanese Mitsubishi A6M2 Zero condenses the air off its wing tips as its pilot hauls his fighter inside a Marine F4F Wildcat's determined attack. The two adversaries cavort the air in a desperate duel high over the island of Guadalcanal. The sky is alive with fighting aircraft as F4Fs and Zeros are locked in deadly combat. 
Below, clearly visible through the clear tropical air is the prize over which they do battle: A single tiny airstrip on a small, hilly, humid, almost uninhibited island - A priceless possession providing the key to air supremacy in the South Pacific - Henderson Field
#AviationArt #WW2 #IJN #A6M2 #Zero #USMC #F4FWildcat #dogfight #Guadacanal #CactusAirForce

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Sunnie Chow One of my favourite Robert Taylor paintings. Too often in most aviation art images, the Zeros or other Japanese aircraft are depicted being shot down, but in this case, the finale is still open-ended, and you wonder, who will shoot who down - the Zero or the Wildcat? I could look at this painting for hours and think of all the dogfighting moves and wonder who will emerge the eventual victor.

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· 2020-12-01T06:58:24+00:00

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