Fighters
Undoubtedly, the World War II aircraft that attracts the most attention are fighters. Yet before the war, the US Army Air Corps paid very little attention to fighter development and tactics as the officers, with certain exceptions, who would later lead the Army Air Forces focused on bombers. It wasn’t until the success of Axis fighters in Europe and Asia revealed their value that more than a modicum of attention was paid to what bomber crews came to know as “little friends.” Even then, it took awhile for truly long-range fighters and effective fighter tactics to be developed. Meanwhile, the ill-founded beliefs of senior officers who had placed their faith in daylight “precision” bombing without fighter escort were sending young airmen to their fate in European skies.
As air force doctrine developed after The Great War, a major precept became “the bomber will always get through.” Coined as a phrase in a speech given by British politician Sir Stanley Baldwin before Parliament in 1932, the concept was based on theories of Italian airman Guilio Douhet, who advocated that air power was a decisive weapon that could operate in the third dimension unhampered by armies, navies and natural obstacles to reach an enemy’s population centers and destroy the national will to fight. While Douhet’s theory met with mixed reviews in Britain, it received a more favorable reception in the United States. In 1920, the Air Service Field Officers School, later renamed the Air Corps Tactical School, was established at Langley Field, Virginia as a professional school. Douhet’s theories received wide dissemination at the school where a core group of instructors adopted them as the basis for strategy. The faculty was dominated by devotees of Brig. Gen. William L. Mitchell, some of whom had participated in his test bombings of German ships off Norfolk, Virginia. Actually, Mitchell never advocated reliance on bombers but that didn’t stop some of his disciples from pursuing that line of thinking. During its first years of operation, the predominant theory taught at the school was that pursuit aviation was to the Air Service what the infantry was to the Army. Attitudes had changed by 1926 when tactical school instructors started advocating that, in addition to striking at military targets, airplanes could bombard manufacturing facilities and other civilian targets. By 1931 air force doctrine held that once an air attack was launched, it would be nearly impossible to stop.
The leading theorist was Maj. Harold L. George, who advocated that the bomber was the Air Corps’ primary weapon and daylight precision bombardment should be the air force’s primary mission. Other advocates reads like a Who’s Who of senior World War II US Army air officers – Henry H. Arnold, Carl Spaatz, Ira Eaker, Haywood Hansell and James H. Doolittle, among others. They came to be known as the “Bomber Mafia” by their opponents at the school – George C. Kenney, who favored an air force designed to support ground forces, Lewis H. Brereton, who believed that air forces should be eclectic, and Claire Chennault, who was the primary advocate for the pursuit mission. Others such as Frank Andrews, who was a strong believer in the bomber, leaned toward it as the primary weapon but believed that an air force should be balanced. Two other believers in an eclectic air force were Lieutenants Ben Kelsey, who worked with Doolittle in the Blind Flight Project and went on to become a leader in fighter research and development, and Gordon Saville, who worked closely with Kelsey and also taught at the Tactical School where he assumed Chennault’s mantle. By the mid-1930s, bomber advocates held sway over Air Corps thought, particularly after Chennault was medically retired.
In the mid-1930s US defense strategy was based on defending against invasion rather than waging an overseas war and the Air Corps was authorized to purchase aircraft with this in mind. Providing escort for bombers wasn’t a consideration. Invasion by sea, although remote, was a far greater possibility than air attack. Instead of developing pursuit ships designed to climb rapidly to high altitudes to intercept an enemy force, the emphasis was on rugged construction with heavy firepower for ground attack. Lt. Ben Kelsey, as the Air Corps fighter projects officer, was responsible for developing new pursuit aircraft. He was particularly interested in Allison Engine Company’s work on in-line liquid cooled engines since they seemed to offer the best performance. He chafed at Air Corps restrictions that limited fighters to 500 pounds for guns and ammunition and pressed to have the restriction raised to 1,000. To get around the restriction, he and fellow lieutenant Gordon Saville formulated two new “interceptor” specifications, one for a single-engine airplane and one for a long-range multi-engine high altitude fighter, which led to the Bell P-39 and the Lockheed P-38. In 1937, the Air Corps issued a specification for a fighter that could go into production quickly. Curtiss offered a version of their Hawk fighter using Allison’s V-1710 engine, which became the P-40. While the P-39 and P-40 were designed primarily for ground attack, the specification that led to the P-38 was for a long-range, high altitude interceptor. All three types used the V-1710 engine. The P-39, however, was developed without a supercharger, although as a ground attack aircraft and low altitude fighter it didn’t need one.
In January 1939, using advances in aviation technology abroad as justification, President Roosevelt called for a military appropriation of $300,000,000 to purchase aircraft for the Army. Less than three months later, Congress passed an emergency Army air defense bill authorizing the procurement of 3,251 aircraft. To speed up deliveries, Air Corps chief Maj. General Henry H. Arnold restricted purchases to aircraft already in or nearing production, which restricted fighter purchases to P-39s and P-40s. It wasn’t until 1941 that the restriction was lifted, and the development and purchase of other types, particularly Republic’s P-47 and the P-38, resumed. Little thought had been given to bomber escort. In fact, the Bomber Mafia believed the bombers of the day were so fast that it would be hard to intercept them and, if intercepted, their gunners would be able to fight off attacking aircraft.
At the time, the new war was still thousands of miles away in Asia and Europe. The only place where the US had interests close enough to possibly be in harm’s way was in the Philippines, although the Panama Canal was a potential target. Until July 1941, the Philippines weren’t a priority for defense but after President Roosevelt imposed an embargo on oil sales to Japan, he decided to beef up defenses in the islands. When war came, it came in the Philippines and the Netherlands East Indies. P-40s had some success in the Philippines in spite of inexperienced pilots and airplanes with engines that hadn’t been broken in but losses couldn’t be replaced. B-17s and LB-30/B-24s operated unescorted against Japanese targets in Java and held their own, but not without six losses to fighters. They were operating under the command of Maj. Gen. Lewis Brereton, who was all for using escorting fighters but all he had were P-40s and P-39s, and there weren’t enough experienced pilots to be effective.
By the spring of 1942, a substantial fighter force had been built up in Australia. They were P-40s and P-39s, along with some 200 P-400s – P-39s that originally had been built for the British and were lighter armed than the US version. While they were ineffective defending against Japanese bombers attacking Port Moresby at high altitude, the P-39/P-400s were very successful in the escort role on missions to the other side of the Owen Stanley Mountains and on strafing missions. P-39s/P-400s were used extensively to attack ground targets in New Guinea and Guadalcanal. It wasn’t until the Air Staff finally sent P-38s to the Southwest Pacific that fall that Allied airmen began gaining the upper hand over the Japanese. Meanwhile, Claire Chennault’s American Volunteer Group and 23rd Fighter Group used his tactics to achieve considerable success in Burma and China with their P-40s.
American aircraft first saw action against the Luftwaffe in the Middle East, where Brereton transferred in June 1942, in response to the British defeat at Tobruk. His Middle East Air Force’s mission was supporting British operations in Egypt and Libya. MEAF included two P-40 groups, but they operated under RAF Middle East Command control primarily for ground attack and providing air cover at low altitudes. The only high altitude fighters available were RAF Spitfires, which lacked the range to go with MEAF’s B-24s to their targets. In November 1942, MEAF became Ninth Air Force. It continued a dual mission of supporting the British with its P-40s and light and medium bombers while mounting unescorted attacks on strategic targets with B-24s. The use of fighters, particularly P-40s, for ground attack had become the primary fighter mission in the Mediterranean by mid-1943 but it wasn’t until the spring of 1944 that such missions became primary in Western Europe where fighters had been used mostly for escort.
Although the United States formally entered the war on December 8, 1941, it wasn’t until August that heavy bombers commenced operations out of the UK. Only four fighter groups – the pursuit designation was changed to fighter in early 1942 – were part of the initial move of Eighth Air Force units to Britain. One operated P-38s while the others had P-39s before they left the US. Originally, the P-39s were supposed to go to the UK by ship but, at the last minute, the Air Staff decided that two groups would leave their airplanes behind and equip them with Spitfires when they arrived. All four groups moved to North Africa to join Twelfth Air Force, as did a second P-38 group that arrived later in the summer. The Air Staff also decided to form a new group in the UK made up of former RAF pilots and Spitfires. Eighth AF activated the 4th FG in September. After the other groups left for Africa, the 4th was the only AAF group left in the UK. A third P-38 group arrived in September but also transferred to North Africa.
In early November, American and British troops landed in Northwest Africa. All three P-38 groups, two Spitfire groups and the P-39 group left England for Algeria to join Twelfth Air Force. Bomber groups arrived throughout the summer but it wasn’t until the end of November that a fighter group arrived. The 78th FG was an experienced P-38 group but shortly after it arrived, its airplanes and most of its pilots went to North Africa. The group re-manned and equipped with P-47s. The transition took place in January 1943 right after the 56th FG arrived. The 4th FG also transitioned into Thunderbolts. To say the pilots were not happy to lose their Spitfires is an understatement!
The Republic P-47 was a radical departure from the Allison-powered fighters that had become standard in the Air Corps. Initially, Republic planned to develop a new fighter based on its P-35 using the Allison inline engine. After the Army expressed reservations about the XP-47, Republic decided to adapt it to the new Pratt and Whitney Double Wasp engine, a large radial engine with double-banked cylinders. The new P-47 was the largest fighter ever built to that time – it grossed out at 11,600 pounds (eventually increased to 17,500 pounds.) The Army was impressed by its performance and issued a contract for 773 airplanes; by the war’s end, more P-47s would be produced than any other fighter. Although the P-47 was heavy, it was fast, with a top speed of 427 MPH, but its climb performance was less than desired. On the other hand, it could dive – so fast that it started nibbling on the edge of the speed of sound and encountered compressibility. The air-cooled radial engine turned out to be better suited to combat operations than liquid cooled engines, which would overheat and seize if the coolant was lost. The first group to equip with the new Thunderbolt was the 56th.
Although the three P-47 groups began training in the UK in January and February, they didn’t become operational until April. Several milk run missions were flown along the French coast with RAF Spitfires to allow the pilots to become accustomed to combat conditions. The first pilot to down a German fighter was Major Don Blakeslee of the 4th FG. He spotted three Focke-Wulf 190s and used his airplane’s diving speed to catch up with one and shoot it down. Two other 4th FG pilots also put in claims. After the mission, Blakeslee was widely reported as saying “it ought to dive, it sure can’t climb.” Yet even though Blakeslee and other former RAF pilots weren’t fond of the Thunderbolt, the men of the 56th were, and they began racking up the highest number of kills of any fighter group assigned to VIII Fighter Command and producing the most American aces of the war. On May 4, VIII FC’s P-47s escorted B-17s to Antwerp. None were lost; the only casualty was a P-47 that suffered an engine failure. Over the next month, encounters with German fighters increased and victories mounted, but so did losses since the young Americans were fighting far more experienced Germans. Some losses were attributed to engine failure.
Bomber Mafia members believed strongly in daylight bombing without fighter escort even though the RAF had learned it was too costly early in the war when casualties were so severe they turned to night operations. They encouraged the Americans to do so as well, but Generals Spaatz and Eaker, the two senior air officers in the UK at the time, were determined to prove the theory in combat. In the summer of 1943, Eaker ordered deep-penetration missions into Germany, with disastrous results. Escorting fighters could operate just beyond the German border, but not by much. The Luftwaffe knew the fighters’ range limitations and planned interceptions after they turned back. VIII Bomber Command suffered heavy casualties as a result.
Earlier in the year, the Eighth Air Force Technical Section began addressing the use of drop tanks to increase range. Although P-38s and P-39s had been fitted with external tanks for ferrying, P-47s were initially shipped by sea and no tanks were sent with them. Col. Ben Kelsey, the technical section commander, requested tanks from the US and put his assistant, Lt. Col. Cass Hough, in charge of testing them. The resonated paper tanks, which held 200 gallons of gasoline, proved unsatisfactory because reduced atmospheric pressure at high altitudes prevented fuel from transferring. They were prone to leak and produced a significant amount of drag, which increased fuel consumption. To solve the problem, Hough requested new tanks from the US, but also went to the British for help.
Hough and his assistant, Lt. Robert Shafer, soon realized that for external tanks to work they had to be pressurized. Due to the urgency of the situation, they chose to ignore Army regulations prohibiting pressurizing fuel tanks, and develop their own pressurized tanks. Working with British engineers, they came up with a means of using exhaust air from the instrument vacuum pump to pressurize the tanks. On May 20, the prototype of an all-metal 100-gallon tank capable of providing fuel up to 35,000 feet arrived in the UK. Plans were made to have the tanks produced in Britain but a shortage of sheet metal caused a three-month production delay. Meanwhile, more than 1,100 unpressurized 200-gallon tanks arrived. Although they couldn’t be used above 23,000 feet, Hough suggested using them during climb-out. There wasn’t enough time to consume a full 200 gallons by the time the fighters reached hostile airspace so the tanks were only partially filled. The procedure increased the Thunderbolt’s range by 75 miles.
On August 17, a shipment of metal tanks arrived. They were designed for P-39s and P-40s but were easily adaptable to P-47s. Although they only held 85 gallons, that was roughly the amount carried in the 200-gallon tanks. The new tanks produced less drag and only reduced airspeed by 12-15 miles per hour. The British offered a paper tank with a capacity of 108 gallons; by the end of September, the 4th FG was using them. The extended range allowed fighters to penetrate into Germany for the first time on September 27 on a mission to Emden. The force met stiff opposition but losses were kept to seven bombers and two fighters; the P-47s claimed 21 German fighters destroyed.
On October 2, the 56th FG flew a mission to Emden with the 108-gallon tanks, an overall distance of 750 miles. By burning their tanks empty, P-47 pilots were able to fly missions 375 miles from their base while the 85-gallon tanks allowed missions to 340 miles. This was some 200 miles short of Berlin, but P-47s were now able to accompany bombers well into German airspace. Long-range escort fighters were beginning to arrive in the UK as two P-38 groups, the 20th and 55th, joined VIII Fighter Command. Meanwhile, bomber losses mounted.
On October 15, the day after a disastrous mission to Schweinfurt, the 55th Fighter Group became operational with its complement of 75 P-38s. With drop tanks, they had a combat radius of 450 miles, which was getting close to Berlin. A second P-38 group, the 20th, became operational in December. New tactics were developed using P-38s to protect the bombers over their targets while P-47s covered the bomber stream at the points where fighter attack was most likely. By November 1, 1943, P-47s had accounted for 237 German aircraft, against a loss of 73 of their own. While this number seems small in comparison to later totals, it was because German pilots refused to engage fighters but waited until they started turning back to attack the bombers. Additional fighter groups arrived in the UK in the fall, most with P-47s. VIII FC was authorized fifteen group but that figure wasn’t reached until the spring of 1944.
Improvements were made to the P-47, including injecting water into the engine cylinders, which boosted power by 200-300 horsepower, thus increasing performance. A larger four-bladed propeller gave the P-47 greatly improved climb performance. The heavy fighter’s range was greatly increased by the addition of two more drop tanks, one under each wing, in addition to the one under the belly. Although it wasn’t until April 1944 that all P-47s had been modified to carry wing tanks, enough had been modified by February that VIII FC was able to take advantage of them by assigning groups to different positions along the bomber stream in relation to their range.
In September 1943, there was a turn of events that brought large numbers of additional fighters to the UK. In preparation for the upcoming invasion of France, Ninth Air Force transferred to England from the Middle East to develop a new tactical air force. Original War Department plans were for Eighth to switch from the strategic to the tactical role to support the invasion with its VIII Air Support Command, but a new plan led to the establishment of a second numbered air force dedicated solely to tactical operations. The transfer was only of Ninth’s headquarters, which was still commanded by Brereton, and IX Fighter and Bomber Commands without equipment or personnel. Brereton’s new air force would consist of fighter/bombers, light and medium bombers and troop carriers to support airborne operations and provide logistical support for his other units once they had crossed the English Channel to France. Ninth eventually included IX Fighter Command and two tactical air commands, IX and XIX. Ninth was supposed to operate as an independent command in conjunction with Royal Air Force units reporting to Air Marshall Trafford Leigh-Mallory, who had been appointed to command the Allied Expeditionary Air Force for the invasion, but the issue became political in February 1944 when Gen. Carl Spaatz, who had been named commander of a new organization called US Strategic Air Forces in Europe, maintained that Ninth should be under his administrative control. Another political issue involved Brereton’s new North American P-51 Mustang fighters.
There is a common misconception that the P-51 with the Merlin engines was developed solely to be an escort fighter and that as soon as they appeared in the skies over Europe, the Allies won air superiority. This, however, was not the case. The design came about when North American Aviation president Dutch Kindleberger took exception to a Curtiss offer to allow his company to produce P-40s under license for sale to the British. Kindleberger proposed that his company instead design and produce a new fighter with the same engine designed around a new wing. He promised to have the first one ready in four months. North American’s new design, which was given the US designation P-51, proved to be fast and maneuverable but it suffered a lack of performance above 15,000 feet because the engines were not turbocharged so the RAF assigned its new Mustangs to ground cooperation squadrons. Because of its range, the Air Staff decided to adapt it as a dive-bomber with the designation A-36. A British test pilot recommended that the RAF modify a Mustang with a Rolls Royce engine to correct the lack of high altitude performance. The modification was successful and the AAF decided to evaluate the conversion.
Volumes have been written about the P-51 with the Merlin engine and how it was developed to be a long-range escort fighter; General Arnold even indicated as much in his memoir. The problem is that this is simply not true. By the time it entered service, the focus had switched to the fighter/bomber, which had proven so effective in North Africa and the Middle East. At the Trident Conference in May 1943, the Combined Chiefs agreed to mount a cross-Channel invasion of France in the spring of 1944 after an invasion of Sicily in mid-1943 and a subsequent move onto the Italian peninsula. During the interim, RAF Bomber Command and VIII Bomber Command would mount a Combined Bomber Offensive, but as the date for the invasion approached, the emphasis would switch to preparations for it. In a letter to Eighth Air Force commander Eaker in September 1943, AEAF commander Leigh-Mallory outlined the role of fighter squadrons:
a. Provide fighter cover over the beaches
b. Provide fighter cover for the shipping lanes leading to the beaches
c. Make fighter/bomber attacks against enemy ground forces and installations
d. Provide fighter escort for light and medium bombers
e. Provide reconnaissance
Providing escort for heavy bombers wasn’t even mentioned. Leigh-Mallory realized that prior to, during and after the invasion the heavy bombers’ role would be supporting the ground forces. In fact, Eighth Air Force’s mission all along had been to prepare for an invasion of France. Although historians haven’t addressed the issue, the decision to discontinue daylight bombing operations deep into Germany may have been prompted as much by the upcoming change in mission as it was by the heavy losses taken in the late summer and fall of 1943. Leigh-Mallory also addressed the P-51s, stating that they appeared equally suited for fighter escort and the close air support role and should be under a single commander.
When the Air Staff began allocating aircraft for Ninth Air Force, all of the new P-51 groups were dedicated to it. It was a logical decision since Ninth’s role prior to the invasion would be attacking German lines of communications throughout Western Europe and the RAF’s Mustangs were going to II Tactical Air Force, Ninth’s counterpart. The P-51s’ increased range would allow them to operate well into Germany on tactical missions; in preparation for the invasion, all missions would be tactical. In October 1943, the first of Ninth’s P-51 groups, the 354th, arrived in the UK, although it wasn’t until the following month that its airplanes arrived. Since it was a new group, a few VIII FC pilots were temporarily attached to it to help its pilots gain experience. One was Lt. Col. Don Blakeslee. He never had liked the P-47s he had been flying for the past year, but the new Mustangs reminded him of the agile Spitfires he had started out in. Blakeslee, who was not a tactician and evidently didn’t understand Ninth’s role in the upcoming invasion, mounted a campaign to have the P-51s reassigned to VIII FC. He pressed his case to VIII FC commander Maj. Gen. William Kepner, who went to Spaatz who appealed to the Air Staff, who told him no.
While Spaatz was unable to have the 354th transferred to VIII FC, he managed to convince the Air Staff to let him swap a P-47 group, the 358th, for the recently arrived 357th FG. Spaatz finally persuaded the Air Staff to reallocate the thirty-three fighter groups that were planned to be assigned to the UK. Eighth would get seven P-51 groups instead of none, along with four groups each of P-38s and P-47s. Ninth would have thirteen P-47 groups, three of P-38s and two of P-51s. Those numbers would change after the invasion when a need developed for additional P-47s and P-38s in the fighter/bomber role and the P-51 proved vulnerable on low-altitude operations. Except for the 56th FG, all of VIII FC’s groups equipped with P-51s by the end of the war and their P-38s and P-47s transferred to Ninth. The reequipping was at least in part due to General George Kenney’s refusal to accept P-51s in the Southwest Pacific, where the P-38 remained the primary fighter, but it was also due to the Mustang’s vulnerability in the tactical role.
It wasn’t until May 1944 that all of Ninth’s groups arrived or that VIII Fighter Command had received its seven groups of P-51s. Consequently, it was the P-38 and P-47 groups that were most responsible for gaining air superiority over Germany. Throughout the winter and early spring of 1944, escort missions were scheduled so that the predominant P-47s would escort the bombers through the areas most prone to fighter attack while the long-range P-38s and P-51s protected them over the target. VIII FC’s fighters were not alone in the escort role; Ninth’s fighters were also flying escort, as were RAF squadrons, some of which had equipped with Mustangs. In his New Years address to Army air units, USAAF commander Arnold stressed that the mission of air forces in Europe was to destroy the Luftwaffe, “in the air, on the ground and in the factories.” Lt. Gen. James H. Doolittle arrived in England on January 6, 1944 to take command of VIII Bomber Command, which would soon be elevated to become Eighth Air Force when the original headquarters became USSTAFE. Sunday, February 20, 1944 kicked off a week of air attacks on German aircraft factories that came to be known as Big Week. Its purpose was to carry out Arnold’s intentions. Over a five-day period, Eighth and Ninth Air Force fighters flew 3,839 sorties – only 425 were by P-51s.
Doolittle was eager to mount an attack on the German capital of Berlin, which had yet to be visited by Eighth Air Force. The mission was originally scheduled for March 3 but bad weather over Germany caused an abort. The following day turned out to be just as bad and another recall was sent out, but one combat wing of B-17s allegedly failed to get the message. When Eighth Air Force realized some bombers weren’t turning back, they allowed part of the fighter escort to continue to Berlin. The 4th Fighter Group, which had just converted to P-51s, and the 354th FG were in the vicinity of Berlin but it was the 55th FG’s P-38s that actually got over the city. On March 6 a mission was finally flown over Berlin, and it turned out to be an even worse disaster than the Schweinfurt mission the previous October, even though the bombers were escorted all the way to and from the target. Sixty-nine bombers and 23 fighters were lost while a number of others failed to return to their bases due to battle damage. Another mission two days later also resulted in heavy losses; 37 bombers and eleven fighters failed to return. Losses on the two missions amounted to 106 bomber crews and 34 fighter pilots, a total of 1,094 men missing in action, not to mention the airplanes that had to be scrapped and those that came back with dead and wounded crewmembers.
The two missions were evaluated in both England and the US to determine why so many bombers had been lost even though they were escorted. It was determined that the fighters operated too close to the bombers and were unable to get into position to break up attacks. Consequently, new fighter tactics were developed. Instead of sticking close to the bombers as they had been doing, fighters went out well ahead of the bomber stream to intercept German fighters while they were assembling while others ranged above and off to the sides of the bombers, sometimes so far away that the crews couldn’t see them. The change in fighter tactics was met with a lack of enthusiasm by the bomber crews, who felt they were being left unprotected. Many accused Doolittle of using them as bait, a belief that wasn’t that far from the truth since the rationale for the Berlin mission and others into Germany at the time was to draw out the Luftwaffe. The new tactics worked and German fighter losses mounted. More than 500 of Germany’s best pilots were lost, a loss that could not be overcome. Bomber losses reached their peak in April then declined.
In another move to inflict damage on the Luftwaffe, escort fighters were encouraged to drop down on the deck during their return flight and expend their ammunition strafing airfields and other targets, particularly locomotives. Fighter pilots were admonished that it didn’t matter whether an airplane was destroyed on the ground or in the air. For a few weeks in March and April, a special unit made up of volunteers from four P-47 groups practiced strafing. After the P-47 groups pioneered ground attack missions, the 4th FG got permission to fly strafing missions against German airfields in France. The P-38-equipped 20th FG flew a strafing mission deep inside Germany only eighty miles west of Berlin. Soon, fighter sweeps over France and even deep into Germany were a regular occurrence. Experiments were also conducted with carrying bombs, which had been standard practice for P-40s in North Africa and the Mediterranean. Fighters were adapted to carry high velocity rockets to attack tanks and other targets. Experiments were also conducted with level bombing by fighters dropping when a modified P-38 with a bombardier on board dropped its bombs. The “droop snoot” P-38s not only led P-38 formations, they also led formations of other fighters, particularly P-47s.
In October 1943, the War Department authorized a new air force in the Mediterranean. Fifteenth Air Force was set up using Twelfth’s B-17s and two B-24 groups that had been with Ninth. Finding fighter groups for escort duty was a problem. The Air Staff reassigned six groups that had previously been with Ninth and Twelfth, three of P-38s and three of P-47s, but priority for fighters was given to the UK due to the upcoming invasion. The only group still in the US not allocated to an overseas air force was the 332nd Fighter Group, a colored unit. In late 1943, Spaatz asked to have it assigned to Italy to XII Fighter Command. There was already one colored fighter squadron in Italy, the 99th, which had been attached to several different groups. The 99th’s record in ground attack was poor, but in January the squadron put in a good showing against German fighter/bombers over Anzio. Senior air force leaders reasoned that the 332nd might be better suited to the air combat role and reassigned it to Fifteenth Air Force. At the time, the 332nd was flying P-39s while the 99th was flying P-40s, but they both briefly transitioned into P-47s then into Mustangs. The 332nd began flying escort missions in early June and the 99th joined it in July. The 332nd was the only new fighter group to join Fifteenth. It gave Fifteenth a fourth fighter group and four additional squadrons. By mid-July, Fifteenth’s P-47 groups had all transitioned into P-51s while their P-47s went to Twelfth Air Force, which, like Ninth Air Force in the UK, had become a tactical air force.
There is a common misconception that P-51s were used primarily for escort duty because they were superior in the air-to-air combat role. Actually, although the Mustang had greater range, the transition into P-51s was because they were less suited for ground attack due to their liquid cooling system, which made them very vulnerable. A single hole in the cooling system could cause a complete loss of coolant followed by an engine failure. (The late Brigadier General Charles “Chuck” Yeager, who flew P-51s once told the author they were so vulnerable “you could bring one down with a slingshot.”) Of the two groups that served longest with VIII FC, the 4th lost twice as many fighters as the 56th, which operated P-47s for the entire war while the 4th was the first of VIII FC’s groups to convert to P-51s. Spitfires, which used the same engines, also proved unsuited for ground attack missions for the same reasons. The Hawker Typhoon also had a liquid cooling system but it had been modified for ground attack so the RAF was forced to make-do with it. The P-38 also featured liquid cooling but with two engines a pilot at least had a chance to make it to a friendly base if one failed. The P-38’s concentrated fire and 20-MM cannon made it an effective ground attack aircraft.
The P-38’s record in Europe is somewhat checkered, although in the Pacific it was the preferred fighter due to its long range and the safety provided by the second engine in an environment where missions were flown over long stretches of open water. Although P-38s were assigned to Eighth Air Force at the beginning of its service in the UK, they all transferred to North Africa in late 1942 and it wasn’t until nearly a year later that any were assigned to VIII FC when the 20th and 55th Fighter Groups arrived. They offered new escort possibilities due to their much longer range; with external tanks, they were able to go 100 miles further into Germany than P-47s. However, early VIII FC P-38 operations were plagued with mechanical problems. The cockpit heaters were ineffective in the severe cold over Europe where air temperatures can be 50 degrees (F) or more below zero. The cold caused engine problems as lubricating oil thickened and led to failures. The turbochargers also gave problems. The P-38s were not the only fighters to suffer problems due to cold – so did the P-51s. Yet even though Eighth Air Force was lukewarm to the Lightning, the three groups that moved to North Africa operated them for the duration of the war, with considerable success. After escorting Northwest Africa Air Forces heavy bombers, the three P-38 groups were reassigned to Fifteenth when it was formed, and served as almost half of its escorting fighter force.
The increased kill ratio during the last year of the war is often attributed to the superiority of the Mustang, but there were other factors that led to an increase in German losses while Allied losses declined. Not the least was the decline in quality of the Luftwaffe’s fighter force due to heavy losses among its experienced pilots. Strafing of airfields also had a major impact; more aircraft were destroyed on the ground than in the air. German aircraft losses were made up – fighter production continued right up until the end of the war – but experienced pilot losses couldn’t be. Another factor was the interruption of petroleum supplies, both by attacks against the Romanian oil industry and the destruction of locomotives and tank cars, which reduced training hours for Luftwaffe pilots. While new American pilots had an average of 120 hours in fighters by the time they entered combat in 1944, Luftwaffe pilots had less than thirty. When Soviet forces captured the Romanian oil fields in August 1944, German gasoline supplies were cut to the bone. Consequently, the Luftwaffe kept its fighters on the ground unless a mission was headed for certain targets, particularly Berlin. The Luftwaffe deployed jet fighters in late 1944 but their high fuel consumption and limited endurance reduced their effectiveness.
Escort fighters were never the problem in the Pacific that they were in Western Europe. Although missions were much, much longer, they were mostly over open water until reaching the target area so the bombers weren’t prone to interception as early in the mission. Fighter range was greater because they didn’t have to weave over the bombers to protect them. General George Kenney, the senior air officer in the Southwest Pacific where most of the air action took place, wasn’t locked into the daylight precision bombing theory. Until P-38s became available for escort, he instructed his bomber commanders to schedule missions so their bombers came over the target in hours of darkness or right at daylight while the Japanese were still asleep. Missions over New Guinea were escorted by P-39s and P-40s. Beginning at the end of December 1942, long-range P-38s became available and the Allies quickly gained air superiority. Fifth Air Force also began receiving P-47s. In mid-1944, Charles Lindbergh visited the theater as a technical representative for Chance-Vaught and got permission to fly with the P-38 squadrons. He taught Kenney’s fighter pilots how to extend their range greatly by using power control techniques he had learned during his record-setting flights. Lindberg, who was experienced with the P-47 and the Double Wasp engine, taught fuel-saving techniques to P-47 pilots as well. Consequently, Fifth Air Force fighter pilots operated at much greater distances from their bases than their counterparts in Europe. When he was offered P-51s, Kenney refused them. He had settled on P-38s as his primary fighter due to the long overwater missions his pilots were required to fly. The loss of an engine on a single-engine fighter over the shark infested waters or the dense tropical jungles was a death sentence. It wasn’t until early 1945 that Fifth Air Force received any P-51s except for those assigned to reconnaissance squadrons as F-6s.
Fighters played a major role in China starting in early 1942 when Claire Chennault’s American Volunteer Group went into action with their P-40s. In July the AVG was brought into the US Army as the 23rd Fighter Group, although most of its pilots went back to the States or went to work for China National Airways Corporation flying transports. Since all fuel and other supplies had to be flown to China from India, fighters were better utilized due to their lower fuel consumption. Initially, fighters in the CBI were P-40s but as new types became available, they were joined and eventually replaced by P-47s, P-38s and P-51s.
In the summer of 1944, Boeing B-29s commenced operations against Japan from China, then later in the year from the Marina Islands. Not even the vaunted Mustang had the range to reach Japan from the Marinas but some had been assigned to Seventh Air Force to escort its Liberators (there were no B-17s in the Pacific after 1943.) As it turned out, the B-29s faced a much smaller Japanese fighter force than expected and losses to fighters were light. Nevertheless, one of the reasons given for the capture of Iwo Jima was that it could serve as a base for P-51s for missions to Japan. However, the escort issue soon became moot; in March 1945 XXI Bomber Command turned to night operations at low altitudes and the Mustangs were used primarily for fighter sweeps. Once Okinawa fell into Allied hands, Fifth Air Force fighters moved to bases there and on nearby islands and began flying strafing and bombing missions against Kyushu, where the planned invasion of Japan was supposed to take place. On August 5, the day before the first atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima, Fifth Air Force pilots came back from their missions to report that white flags of surrender had been laid out all over the island.
The End