By late 1943 the fighter pilots of the American Eighth Air Force in England had heard all the rumours about the new plane the British called Mustang, and the men of the 4th Fighter Group at Debden in Essex were especially eager to get their hands on Mustangs. For some time they had been flying P-47s and were far from pleased with them. Although later models of the Thunderbolt were considerably improved, the planes then being operated from Debden were, in their opinion, “lumbering, over-rated crates that wouldn’t climb, wouldn’t turn, and whose cockpit had a way of gathering smoke from burning oil, often unnerving the pilot.”
But the fighter groups of the Eighth were slow to receive the new machines from North American and as the year wore on, some even tried lobbying General Arnold to equip their outfit at the earliest possible moment. They soon learned that the Ninth Air Force had a higher priority and would be getting their Mustangs ahead of the Eighth’s groups.
In this period the 4th was engaged in a friendly rivalry with a sister organization, Hub Zemke’s 56th Fighter Group based at Halesworth in Suffolk. Zemke’s boys were getting on with the job in their massive Thunderbolts, racking up significant combat scores of ten to fifteen aerial victories a mission and easily outshining the achievements of Colonel Don Blakeslee’s boys at Debden. It almost seemed that the 4th Fighter Group pilots were feeling a bit sorry for themselves. They missed the lithe, agile little Spitfires they had enjoyed flying before the coming of the brutish Thunderbolt, and knew that the much vaunted Mustang was much like the quick and deadly Spitfire, only more so.
By the time Zemke’s boys had destroyed their 300th enemy aircraft, Blakeslee’s pilots had barely managed to down 150, and the gentlemen of Debden explained their deficit with a whole range of excuses: “They just booger off and don’t protect the bombers like we do”, as well as “They’re just getting a lot of easy-meat twin-engined stuff.” Besides, the 56th was based up at Halesworth, on the coast, giving them an extra fifteen to twenty minutes hunting time over Germany. There were gripes and grumbles aplenty, and not all of them from the pilots.
Crew chiefs and other mechanics shared the displeasure of their pilots in that atmosphere of under-achievement. They all resented it when the first of the new armour-piercing incendiary ammunition went to the 56th, Zemke’s Wolfpack, as it had become known. But Blakeslee’s reaction was different: “No, they’ve been doing the fighting lately, they rate ’em. Just wait!”
“It’s the ship” became Blakeslee’s catch phrase. He had been selected to mentor the fledgling 354th Fighter Group through their first few missions shortly after their arrival in England. He was a great leader, especially in the air where few if any other flying group commanders had the capability of truly controlling their pilots in aerial combat. Don Blakeslee could and did. But he preferred to sleep in his own bed at Debden each night and flew back there after each mission with the 354th in a borrowed P-51 to watch his own boys drool as he dazzled them with tales of its amazing performance and promise. They all ached to fly it. “It’s the ship”, he said.
With that brief experience of combat in the Mustang under his belt, Blakeslee was certain that when his own group was equipped with the new fighter from North American, they would very quickly earn their own distinction as the premier fighter group of the Eighth. He appealed to General William E. Kepner, Commanding General of Eighth Air Force Fighter Command, to put his boys in Mustangs immediately. But the general argued that pressing demands of the great air offensive going on meant that no time could be spared on a lengthy change-over from the 4th’s Thunderbolts to Mustangs. Days, even weeks, might be needed for practice flying to accustom them to the hot new fighter, and even more time would be required for the ground crews to familiarize themselves with P-51 maintenance procedures for the liquid-cooled Merlin engines of the ’51s. Colonel Blakeslee countered that most of his boys had already flown Merlin-engined Spitfires in the RAF before they transferred into the 4th. And they had continued to fly Spitfires at Debden until the conversion to P-47s, so the mechanics were all familiar with the liquid-cooled Merlins. “General, give me those Mustangs and I give you my word—I’ll have ’em in combat in twenty-four hours.”
In his fine book The Look of Eagles, former 4th Fighter Group ace John T. Godfrey wrote: “Rumours had been flying hot and heavy that we were being transferred from P-47s to P-51s. We had heard a lot of talk about this amazing plane. By cutting the fire power to four machine guns and using a new type of carburetor, it was capable of 1,800-mile flights with its two belly tanks. Our P-47s had only one belly tank which was slung underneath the fuselage. The 51s had them slung underneath each wing, with two more permanent tanks in the wing and another tank just to the rear of the cockpit.”
On February 22nd the rumours were confirmed when a lone P-51 landed and all sixty pilots of the 4th were ordered to fly it in preparation for the change-over. Godfrey thought it a beautiful airplane. With its big in-line engine, it reminded him of the Spitfire, and, like the Spitfire, it too was glycol-cooled. The pilots of the group queued up to fly the plane, like housewives at a bargain sale. They each had only forty minutes in the air in the Mustang by the morning of the 28th when the group flew to the Steeple Morden base in their P-47s and traded them for P-51s. The new Mustangs had not been fitted with auxiliary fuel tanks, but they were fuelled and the machine guns were loaded. Their briefing was held on the ground among the planes. Rather than flying back to Debden, Blakeslee led the boys on a fighter sweep to France to familiarize them with the aeroplane the hard way.
Godfrey was sure the Air Force had made no mistake in purchasing the Mustangs from the North American Aviation. He believed they were the hottest planes in the sky. From zero to 30,000 feet they were able to match anything the Luftwaffe put into the air. “If the fighting spirit of the group was high before the advent of the 51s,” he thought, “it was now at fever pitch.”
But some horrible problems were plaguing the Mustangs—engine trouble, fuel trouble, radio trouble—and worst of all, in addition to their windscreens frosting up, so too did their machine-guns. The guns froze at high altitudes and, in dogfights, they frequently jammed with the force of gravity in a tight turn. That meant straightening out before firing—virtually impossible in the circumstances. Technicians from North American Aviation were rushed to Debden to deal with these problems, but in the interim the great air offensive against Germany was in full swing, and the pilots of the 4th had to fly the ’51s, bugs and all.
On March 3rd they flew the first escorted raid on Berlin. In the briefing that morning, the red line from Debden ran off the map and onto the wall. It was a long haul, and the Mustangs were to be the first fighters to go all the way with the bombers to Berlin and back. But the weather turned unfavorable and the bombers turned back. Plagued with Mustang ‘bugs,’ eight pilots from Godfrey’s squadron had to turn back for England. The remaining eight P-51s continue towards Berlin. Separated from the rest of the group, the eight were unable to hear Blakeslee ordering all planes to return to base after he had learned from the bombers the show was canceled.
From the U.S. Army newspaper Stars and Stripes: FIVE OF EIGHT MUSTANGS SURVIVE BATTLE WITH SIXTY GERMANS A Mustang Base, Mar. 5—The story of an ambush in which eight Mustang pilots fought their way past sixty German fighters was told here by the five survivors. Separated from the rest of their group, the eight Mustang men of the Eighth AAF were jumped by swarms of enemy fighters which dived out of the sun in groups of ten and twenty. Maj. Gilbert O. Halsey, of Chickasha, Okla., gave the order to fight their way out, and the Mustangs took on the entire Nazi air circus. Three U.S. pilots were shot down in the melee with FW-190s, ME-109s, and 210s and even a few Do-217s. Four German planes were destroyed, two by Capt. Don Gentile, of Piqua, Ohio,who boosted his total score to ten.
They had flown through a light cloud formation and into sixty German fighters. Godfrey had no time to count them, but saw dozens of them above, below, and to their sides; ME-109s, Me-210s and FW-190s, all looking sinister with their black crosses glistening as the sun reflected off them. I can’t say they bounced us, for the word is not descriptive enough; they just poured on us. There was no possibility of flying wing to another plane. It was every man for himself in the melee of diving and screaming planes. In the first minutes of flight I gave no thought to firing my guns; it would have meant flying straight and level to insure a shot. I was continually turning, banking, climbing and diving while German planes repeatedly attacked me.
John Godfrey freed himself from the confusion and dived for the deck. He heard the chatter of some of the other pilots on the R/T as they tried to re-form. He was relieved to know that some of them had also escaped and he began climbing to see if he could spot them. He levelled off at 28,000 feet but saw no other Mustangs. Calling on the R/T for their positions, he got no answer. A plane then approached and, because of its long nose, he thought it was a Mustang. Turning into it he was surprised to find that it was neither a Mustang nor an ME-109, but a new Focke-Wulf; its long nose the latest improvement of the hot German fighter. These new FWs were rumored to have more horsepower than their predecessors, and supposedly capable of giving a Mustang a rough time. We met nearly head-on and both pilots banked hard in preparation for a dogfight.
As the tail-chase went on, the FW got in close, and then, when Godfrey dropped his flaps to tighten his turn, he got aligned to fire; but the German, sensing Godfrey’s superior position, kept swinging down in his turn, gaining speed and quickly pulling up, and with the advantage in height he then dove down on the American pilot. Time was in the German’s favour. He could fight that way for an hour and still have enough fuel to land anywhere below him. Godfrey still had 400 miles of enemy territory to fly over before he could land. Knowing he had to be innovative, Godfrey raised his flaps, dove and then pulled up in a steep turn, while dropping his flaps slightly. The G force was severe, but the ploy worked, and he was confident of an imminent kill. Pressing the firing button he waited expectantly, but nothing happened, his guns weren’t firing.
In taking this last gamble Godfrey had lost altitude but had been able to bring his guns to bear while flying below the FW. With the German’s height advantage, he was able to come down, pull up sharply, and get on my tail again. The FW’s 20mm cannons belched and Godfrey saw what looked like golf balls streaming by him. A little less deflection and those seemingly harmless golf balls would have exploded upon contact with the Mustang. ‘Never turn your back on an enemy’ was a byword with us, but Godfrey had no choice. Turning the plane over on its back, he yanked the stick to his gut. He left the throttle wide open as he dove. The needle stopped at 600 miles per—that was as far as it could go on the dial. Pulling out, he feared the wings would rip off, the plane was bucking so much. The last part of his pull-out brought the Mustang up into the clouds. Godfrey was thankful to have evaded the long-nosed FW, for that pilot was undoubtedly the best that he had ever encountered. He saw no other planes on the way homeback to Debden and had to wait until landing to hear the fate of my buddies.
“Bob Richards was flying on my wing over the Channel. He called me, ‘Hello, Shirt Blue Red Leader, this is Red Two. My motor’s acting up, am returning to base.’
‘Roger, Red Two.’
“I didn’t know it then, but those were the last words I was to hear from Bob.
“Motor difficulty was common [in] those days, and over the radio I could hear other boys reporting trouble. On approaching the Dutch coast my own engine started coughing and spitting. It was my turn now. Of the sixteen that took off that morning, only three from our squadron were able to meet the bombers over Berlin. Those three returned to the base. The three missing boys were from the other two squadrons. Weather was very bad over England. I started to let down through the clouds, but when ice formed on my wings, I turned back toward the Channel.
“Emerging from the clouds I flew south, letting down gradually until 500 feet above the Channel, then I turned back to England and flew at 600 feet just below the cloud base.
“Bob was not at Debden when I landed, but I didn’t worry, and in fact gave no thought to it even an hour later when I still had no word. Probably he had landed at Martlesham Heath to see our friend J.J. and just forgot to call the base.
“I was still sitting in the dispersal hut when the phone in the intelligence room rang. I heard the low talking but the words were indistinct. Then Mac, the intelligence officer, approached me with a bottle and a glass. At the end of every mission a glass of whiskey was always given to the pilot, if he wished it, to settle his nerves.
“ ‘Here, Johnny, this is a bonus day. Have another drink.’ I gladly accepted the offer of the free drink, but was suspicious of Mac, who didn’t look into my eyes as he usually did when he handed a drink to me. His presence suddenly made me uncomfortable.
“ ‘Somebody’s got to tell you, Johnny, and I guess I’m the one. A call just came through from the RAF. Bob’s plane crashed at Framlingham. He was still in the cockpit. He’s dead, Johnny.’
“His words hit me like a lightning bolt. It just didn’t seem possible—not Bob, my war buddy. After living together for two years, our comradeship had strengthened into a love which for me was even greater than the feeling I had for my own brothers. We had shared everything, clothes, money, and yes, even girls. I knew his faults and merits just as he knew mine. I cried inwardly, but I didn’t break down.”
“There they are. You can learn to fly ’em on the way to the target”, Blakeslee told his pilots that morning at Steeple Morden when they exchanged their P-47s for Mustangs. Ordinarily, American fighter pilots would have at least 200 hours of flying time in a Mustang before they were sent overseas to fly it in combat. The pilots of the 4th Fighter Group at Debden averaged just under forty minutes in the plane when they took it on their first operational mission over Europe. It was a lot to ask of them and, were it not for the fact that Colonel Blakeslee was going with them on virtually every mission, taking the same risks, at least some of them might have refused to go.
The risks they all took were certainly genuine. In addition to the constant hazards of air combat and German flak, they were largely unfamiliar with the P-51 and were having more than a reasonable share of engine failures due to overheating through coolant leaks. Such incidents resulted in the loss of several pilots and close calls for many more.
By the early spring of 1944, the fighter squadrons of the Eighth had nearly 1,000 Mustangs on strength and were dealing effectively with the various problems that had plagued the plane initially. The ever resourceful and occasionally brilliant crew chiefs and mechanics of Eighth Fighter Command often came up with elegant solutions in the field, fixes that brought the Mustang to a higher performance and safety standard. These on-the-spot improvements were communicated to North American engineering and assembly personnel in California who quickly incorporated them as changes to new aircraft on the factory line, which made for fighter deliveries that were closer to being combat-ready when they arrived in the war zone.
In little more than a year, the pilots of the 4th had progressed from operating Thunderbolts to a maximum combat radius of 175 miles and targets such as Paris and Brussels, to targets in the farthest reaches of Germany in their superb new Mustangs. They had hit their stride and were finally giving the pilots of Zemke’s Wolfpack a real challenge.
The German Air Force could no longer count on being able to easily get at the American bombers when their Spitfire, Lightning, or Thunderbolt escorts were forced by range limitation to turn back for England. In the Mustang the American Eighth and Ninth Air Forces had a weapon with enormous fuel capacity and relatively low fuel consumption, enabling it to go all the way with the bombers and back, no matter where the target happened to be. When asked at the Nuremberg War Crimes Trials when it was he realized that Germany had lost the war, the Luftwaffe commander-in-chief Hermann Goering replied: “When I saw Mustang fighters over Berlin.”