Reading this gave me the idea to reconstruct, especially for you, the history of one of those planes, or at least as far as I could trace it.
So here we go, with P-51D Mustang 44-84798:
It was delivered to the RNEIAF somewhere in late 1945, in Bundaberg, Australia, as one of a batch of 40 aircraft. The war ended shortly after that, but the Netherlands were having difficulties in the former Dutch East Indies (what is now Indonesia). The Dutch thought they could return to nice kolonial life, but the Indonesians had other ideas. The planes were ferried to Tjililitan, near Jakarta in april and may 1946. Here you see 44-84798 somewhere between Cloncurry and Darwin, wearing it's first RNEIAF paintscheme, with Dutch flags as insignia and with registration N3-635:
The registrations on these plane were N3-600 to N3-640, but some had the registration on the nose, some on the tail. After arrival in Tjililitan, the aircraft were assigned to 121 Squadron, and an additional number was painted on the tail, to make them easier to identify. On the 1st of November 1946, 122nd Squadron was activated, and N3-635 was sent with this squadron to Medan, where it flew sorties against the Indonesian 'rebels':
Early 1947, it was decided to to bring the registration in line with the registrations of the Royal Dutch Air Force in the Netherlands, resulting in the numbers H301 -H340. N3-635 thus became H-335, still equipped with the Dutch flag as insignia.
In 1948, H-335 was converted to a two-seater, by taking out the central tank, and replacing it with a passenger seat. The passenger was facing rearward in this configuration. The pilots actually said that this conversion greatly improved the flying characteristics. 1948 also saw a change in insignia: the flags were replaced by roundels; Here we see H-335 in its new scheme (the rudder probably came from a crashed Mustang, and was not repainted at first, hence the 0):
Meanwhile, things were not going well for the Dutch, and intense international opposition to military actions (called 'police actions' by the Dutch) meant they had to give up hope of retaining Indonesia as a colony, and on the 27th december 1949, the Dutch Government recognized the Indonesian Republic, and hostilities ended. Over the next six months, all airbases and material were handed over to the Indonesian Government, with the Mustangs being handed over last, on the 10th of June 1950. They were subsequently used by the new Indonesian Air Force (AURI), often being flown by Dutch pilots. The Dutch roundels were replaced by Indonesian flags and dashes, and the H of the serials was changed to a F. Here we have F-335 in early Indonesian service:
The Indonesian flags were replaced by red and white pentagons in 1950. The Dutch were always very restrained with fancy paintwork, but the Indonesians clearly had no such restraints, and most Mustangs of 3rd squadron were painted with black and white 'checkertails' and very big sharkmouths, as seen here:
The last action of F-335 that I have been able to find was in 1962, when it was flying sorties against the Dutch, its former owners, in New Guinea. This had remained Dutch in 1949, but after political pressure and armed conflicts, it became part of Indonesia in 1963. The Mustangs were camouflaged, but still equipped with their characteristic sharkmouths.
What happened with our plane afterwards I do not know. There are a few Mustangs on display in Indonesia, (see for instance here: http://www.swissmustangs.ch/40492/index.html) but these are (probably) not F-335, so who knows where it ended up?
I hope you liked my little history tour, and if somebody is interested in any or all of these repaints, just give me a call.
