[Don Boose]

Fine model, as always, Karol! And a favorite airplane of mine.

The colors and markings locate the aircraft between January 1942, when the red and white peppermint stripes were applied (in accordance with a 5 January 1942 directive) and May 1942, when the red and white stripes and the red centers to the stars were deleted in accordance with a 15 May 1942 dispatch. So your Buffalo is in the markings it would have carried during the time of the early carrier raids and the Battle of the Coral Sea, although it would not have participated in those actions, except possibly for a 7-14 January 1942 sortie southwest of Pearl Harbor by USS Lexington .

It seems likely to me that your model is an F2A-3 of Navy Fighting Squadron 2 (VF-2) aboard Lexington in January 1942. At that time, VF-2 was the only carrier outfit flying the Buffalo, and they turned their F2A-3s over to Marine Fighting Squadron 212 (VMF-212) of Marine Air Group 21 at Kaneohe, Hawai'i and re-equipped with Grumman F4F-3As on 26 January 1942.

So your airplane could also have been assigned to VMF-212 at Ewa Field in Hawai'i January - March 1942, or VMF-212 at Efate (then in the New Hebrides, now part of Vanuatu) March-May 1942, or to VMF-211, which flew (ex-VF-2) Buffaloes in those markings from Palmyra Island in April-May 1942.

Of course, it could also be from a shore based unit, but I think it would be more fun to assume it is either a VF-2 aboard the Lex in January '42, when it might have participated in shooting up a Japanese submarine, or a VMF-211 or 212 bird.

Whatever it is, it sure is a pretty model!

Don