Hello marinell
A genuine warbird which shot down four enemy aircraft before being downed in combat in Northern France in 1944.
Hello marinell
The P-51 Mustang designed by North American Aviation is perhaps the zenith of piston aircraft engineering. Its form is sublime. It harnessed the latest in technology from the time and was instrumental in securing air supremacy for the Allied forces during World War II.
April 1944
P-51D-5-NA 44-1352, known as “Marinell”, was manufactured at North American’s Inglewood plant in California. Marinell was shipped to the UK on the 6th June 1944, D-Day. She was assigned to the 504th Fighter Squadron, part of the 339th Fighter Group of the famous Eighth Air Force and was placed under the command of a young pilot called Captain Bradley Stevens.
Captain Stevens was only 24 years old when he arrived at Liverpool Docks in May 1944. He had trained at Rice Army Air Base in California. Captain Stevens chose to name his new mustang “Marinell” after a young girl he had met whilst completing his combat training. Mary Anell Stokes was 20 years old when she met the young Captain Stevens.
The fateful day
On the morning of the 13 August 1944, Captain Stevens carried out a bombing and strafing mission against railway targets in France in Marinell. Captain Stevens landed back at Fowlmere at 11.30 that same morning. His combat report about the mission stated that heavy, intense and accurate flak had been sustained.
Later that day, Lieutenant Winkelman, another member of the same squadron, set out on a dive-bomb and area sweep mission to Beauvais, France, flying Marinell. He was shot down at approximately 18.30 in the area of Feuquières.
Marinell was with the unit for just 45 days when she was shot down. In that time she had claimed four enemy planes to her name—two FW190s and two ME109s.
