REPLI-SCALE
DECALS 72-1055 NAA P-51B/D MUSTANG 357TH FG USAAF YOXFORD BOYS Pt2
-----------------------------------------------------------------
Additional
Information from Internet Encyclopedia
The 357th Fighter Group was an air combat
unit of the United States Army Air Forces during the Second World War. The
357th operated P-51 Mustang aircraft as part of the U.S. Eighth Air Force and
its members were known unofficially as "The Yoxford Boys" after a
village near their base in the UK. (Group tradition holds that the name was the
invention of Lord Haw Haw in a broadcast greeting the night of its arrival at
RAF Leiston.) Its victory totals in air-to-air combat are the most of any P-51
group in the Eighth Air Force and third among all groups fighting in Europe.
The 357th flew 313
combat missions between 11 February 1944 and 25 April 1945. It is officially
credited by the U.S. Air Force with having destroyed 595.5 German airplanes in
the air and 106.5 on the ground.
The 357th had been
allocated to the Ninth Air Force as a P-51 tactical air support unit. It moved
into its base at RAF Raydon on 30 November 1943. It had no aircraft until 19
December, when the it received a former Mustang III of RAF Fighter Command,
hastily repainted in U.S. olive drab. By the end of the year the 357th received
15 Mustangs, severely restricting conversion training for the pilots, and some
made the transition by ferrying in new aircraft. All but a handful gained
flying experience in the new aircraft only by flying combat operations.
This handful,
consisting of group and squadron commanders and proposed flight leaders, made
approximately a dozen sorties on escort missions with the 354th Fighter Group,
which had been flying combat only since 1 December. Pilots from both units
learned that the P-51s still had maintenance flaws to be worked out, primarily
in guns that jammed in maneuvering and engines that overheated from loss of
coolant, and the commanding officer of the 363 FS was shot down on a mission
while flying with the 354th Fighter Group on 25 January 1944.
The need for a
long-range escort fighter had resulted in a decision to give the Eighth Air
Force a priority for the Mustang, reversing the earlier allocation of these
groups to the Ninth for tactical support of Allied ground operations in France.
The 357th was reassigned to VIII Fighter Command in exchange for a P-47 group
that had already begun combat operations, and at the end of January, changed
bases with the 358th Fighter Group, moving to its permanent base at RAF Leiston
on 31 January.
Assigned to the
66th Fighter Wing, the 357th was the first P-51 Mustang Group of the Eight Air
Force. Between its move to Leiston and 11 February, when it flew its first
combat mission, the group received a full inventory of P-51B fighters. On 8
February six pilots flew a final mission with the 354th, a deep penetration
bomber escort to Frankfurt, Germany, and lost a pilot killed in action.
The first group
mission, led by Medal of Honor-recipient Major James H. Howard of the 354th FG,
was an escort mission for B-24's bombing V-1 sites in the Pas de Calais. The
new commander of the 4th Fighter Group, Lt.Col. Don Blakeslee, led two similar
missions on 12 and 13 February, with the first combat loss occurring on 13
February. The 357th changed commanders on 17 February, its former commander
Col. Chickering moving up to a staff position in the Ninth Air Force, and its
new CO Col. Spicer the former executive officer of the 66th Fighter Wing.
The groups' fourth
combat mission was its first over Germany, at the start of the coordinated
strategic bombing attacks against the Luftwaffe and the German aircraft
industry that came to be called the "Big Week." The 357th flew all
five days, losing eight Mustangs in combat but recording its first 22 aerial
victories. Attacks intensified as Berlin was bombed by the USAAF for the first
time in March, with the group shooting down 20 fighters during the first major
raid on 6 March. The 364th Fighter Squadron led the group in aerial victories,
with 32 by the end of March, and with two pilots claiming ace status on 16
March.
In its first month
of operations, the 357th flew 15 missions, losing 14 P-51s but credited with 59
kills. On an escort mission to Bordeaux, France, on 5 March, the 357th lost two
aircraft. Group commander Col. Henry Spicer was captured while the French
Resistance aided Flight Officer Charles E. Yeager in evading capture for 25
days. He successfully escaped to Spain, where he remained six weeks before
being returned to Allied control.
The initial group
of P-51B aircraft received by the 357 FG were finished in factory-applied olive
drab with gray lower surfaces. The USAAF in a major policy change had ended
this specification on all aircraft produced after 13 February 1944. The 357th
applied field camouflage to its replacement P-51C (beginning in March) and
P-51D (beginning in June) fighters until December 1944, with most receiving an
overall coat of "RAF green" (a shade similar to olive drab) with gray
undersurfaces, but a prominent minority being bare metal with olive drab tails
and upper surfaces. This practice distinguished 357th Mustangs from those of
the other Eighth Air Force groups until 1945 when the camouflage was phased
out.
In February 1944,
VIII Fighter Command assigned the 357th Fighter Group two-letter squadron
identification codes to be painted on the fuselages of its fighters, and each
squadron assigned its aircraft individual letter identifiers. The Eighth Air
Force had in January given veteran units permission to use brightly colored
spinners and identification bands on the engine cowls of their fighters. In
late March, the 66th Fighter Wing adopted colored spinners and a checkerboard
paint scheme to be painted as an identifying cowl band on the noses of its
aircraft, with each of its five groups assigned a different color. These bands
were 12 inches (300 mm) wide with six-inch (152 mm) squares. The
357th's group nose colors were red and yellow, and many nose art names were
also painted in matching colors. In late 1944 the 357th began to discontinue
the use of olive drab camouflage and adopted a color system painted on the tail
rudders of its Mustangs to identify the squadron.
On 23 April 1944,
VIII Fighter Command changed its system of radio call signs to reduce confusion
when the fighter groups, now numbering a hundred or more fighters in their
inventories, deployed two groups on escort missions ("A group" and
"B Group"). Station call signs (RAF Leiston's was EARLDUKE) were
unchanged, but all previous call signs were discontinued. In 1945 provision was
also made for a C Group on missions (usually only eight to 12 fighters) and all
fighters assigned to a C Group mission used the common call sign.
Because of the
extended range of the P-51, the primary mission of the 357th continued to be
heavy bomber escort. On 11 April 1944, 917 heavy bombers and 819 escort
fighters of the Eighth Air Force attacked aviation industry targets in
Saxony-Anhalt resulting in a severe fighter reaction by the Jagdverbände. A total
of 64 bombers were shot down in one of the heaviest losses to the Eighth, but
strong escort support kept the losses from being worse. Three Mustangs from the
364th Fighter Squadron were also shot down but the group as a whole was
credited with 23 of the 51 aerial victories scored. Another 22 were credited
during the 24 April operations against Bavarian airfields and aircraft
factories, with 70 total for the month resulting in eight additional aces in
the group. While scoring 174 kills in April and May 1944, the 357th also lost
33 Mustangs.
Beginning in late
February 1944, Eighth Air Force fighter units began systematic strafing attacks
on German airfields that picked up in frequency and intensity throughout the
spring (as example, on the above-mentioned missions VIII Fighter Command scored
130 strafing kills in addition to 109 aerial victories) with the objective of
gaining air supremacy over the Normandy battlefield. In general these were
conducted by units returning from escort missions, but many groups also were
assigned airfield attacks instead of bomber support. On 21 May, these attacks
were expanded to include railways, locomotives and rolling stock used by the
Germans for movements of matériel and troops in missions dubbed
"Chattanooga", . The 357th lost two of its aces in combat when their
Mustangs were shot down by flak.
On D-Day, the
group flew eight missions and nearly 130 sorties, and, thereafter, multiple
daily missions over the beachhead. The group also performed its first bombing
missions using the Mustang in June. It encountered few German aircraft during
the month until 29 June, when on a mission to Leipzig it shot down 20. For its
actions over Berlin on 6 March and the Leipzig mission the group was awarded a
Distinguished Unit Citation.
The 357th also
began receiving new P-51D Mustangs as replacement aircraft but many pilots
preferred the earlier B models still prevalent in the group as being more
maneuverable and better-powered at high altitude. By the end of June 1944, the
357th had claimed 283 German aircraft shot down and counted 26 pilots
recognized as aces. Losses over its initial four months of combat amounted to
27 killed or missing in action, 30 captured and 72 P-51s destroyed.
Like all Allied
aircraft flying over the continent, the 357th applied alternating 18-inch
(460 mm), black and white bands, known as "invasion stripes", to
the rear fuselage and wings of its fighters just prior to D-Day. It retained
the lower wing stripes and lower portion of the rear fuselage until the end of 1944,
when most invasion stripes were deleted.
In July 1944, the
K-14, an improved gryoscopic gunsight of British design, reached the 357th for
replacement of the existing N-3B reflector sights in the P-51B and C. The K-14
allowed for rapid, accurate lead-computing of up to 90° deflection by analog
computer with pilot inputs through hand controls. However, the sights were
sized for the cockpits of older Mustangs, now constituting less than a third of
the 357th's strength. Group commander Col. Donald Graham directed the 469th
Service Squadron to mount a K-14 in his assigned P-51D (44-13388 B6-W Bodacious)
to replace its N-9 reflector sight, using bracing and panel cutouts to form a
recess. Testing the sights in combat in September, the K-14 proved so effective
that Graham offered the installation method to other Eighth Air Force groups
for retro-fitting the gunsight into all D-model Mustangs in the field, with the
357th method adopted in March 1945 by the Eighth Air Force Modification Center.
The 357th flew escort
for the second shuttle-bombing mission by the Eighth Air Force, "Frantic
V", on 6 August 1944. Escorting two B-17 groups of the 13th Combat Bomb
Wing to bomb a Focke-Wulf manufacturing plant in Rahmel, West Prussia, 64
Mustangs of the group continued on to the Soviet Union, landing at Piryatin
airfield, a P-39/Yak-3 fighter strip southeast of Kiev, Ukraine, while the
bombers, carrying 357th maintenance crews, continued further east to Mirgorod.
The next day, the Mustangs escorted the B-17s against synthetic oil production
plants in Trzebinia, Poland, returning to Piryatin, and on 8 August, escorted
them to Foggia, Italy, bombing Romanian airfields en route. Temporarily based
at San Severo with the 31st Fighter Group, the 357th supported a C-47 mission to
Yugoslavia on 10 August to evacuate Allied evaders and escaped POWs. On 12
August 1944, the entire Frantic force returned to England, attacking German
lines of communication in Toulouse, France, as part of the preparation for the
invasion of Southern France.
Large-scale combat
between VIII Fighter Command and the Luftwaffe interceptor force had become
virtually nonexistent after 28 May 1944 but, in August, contact was made for
the first time with both rocket-propelled and jet-propelled interceptors. While
themselves a harbinger of a tactical change by the Luftwaffe, the contacts also
indicated that the Germans were husbanding their fighter aircraft for sporadic
reaction against Allied bomber attacks. The 357th, escorting B-17s against oil
targets near Munich, encountered one such reaction on 13 September, engaging 75
Messerschmitt Bf 109s and claiming 15 shot down, but losing five Mustangs.
On 15 September,
operational control of VIII Fighter Command's three fighter wings was placed
directly under the headquarters of the bomb divisions, removing a layer of
command, with a wing controlled by each division. After this date, the 357th
Fighter Group's primary duty was protection of the B-17s of the 3rd Bomb
Division based in East Anglia. In September, the simplified mission planning,
along with the adoption of the K-14 gyro sight and the issuance of
air-inflatable Berger G-suit to pilots came at a time when numerous veteran
pilots were completing their combat tours. Although a significant number of
aces opted to fly second tours after taking leave in the United States, these
innovations helped the group absorb the pilot turnover without significant loss
of combat efficiency.
The Luftwaffe also
reacted with a massed response against the airborne invasion of Holland. On the
afternoon of 18 September, German fighters attacked a large re-supply effort of
Arnhem by Eighth Air Force B-24 bombers. The 357th intercepted a force of 60 Bf
109s near Maastricht, claiming 26 destroyed.The next afternoon the Allies used
over 600 transports for airlift in marginal weather conditions, some of which
were attacked by numerous German fighters, including Bf 109s of Jadgeschwaders
(fighter wings) 11 and 26. The 357th "bounced" the interceptors as
they left the battlefield northeast of Arnhem, shooting down 25 (although five
were not credited until after the war when repatriated POWs were debriefed).
Against their 51 claims, the 357th lost seven Mustangs, with three pilots
killed and three captured.
Air-to-air
contacts declined in the following month, but one notable combat occurred
during an escort mission to Bremen on 12 October 1944, when 1st Lt. Chuck
Yeager claimed five German fighters to become an "Ace in a day", and
the group scored its 400th kill. Yeager had been with the group since its
inception but had only been credited with 1.5 kills to that point. Assigned as
mission leader, Yeager observed 22 Bf 109s of III./JG 26 crossing his flight
path at the same altitude and attacked. Yeager's feat was unique in that the
first two German pilots abandoned their aircraft as he closed the range but
before he opened fire.
On 6 November
1944, Yeager also claimed one of the first Me 262 jet aircraft shot down, when
after a series of skirmishes with three jets in thick haze over Osnabrück, he encountered
one attempting a landing and blew off its wing. Two days later, 357th pilots
again engaged the Kommando Nowotny. 1st Lt. Edward R. "Buddy" Haydon
shared a jet credit in which the German commander, Major Walter Nowotny, was
killed, and 1st Lt. James W. Kenney shot down Hauptmann Franz Schall.
The Jagdverbände
made three concerted attempts to attack Eighth Air Force bombers between 21 and
27 November 1944, and on the last generated an estimated 750 fighter sorties,
the largest defensive reaction of the war. The three fighter wings of the
Eighth used a tactical ruse to score a significant victory. Assigning 13 groups
to a fighter-bomber mission, P-51s and P-47s simulated heavy bomber formations
while other P-51s flew escort patterns above them. The resulting radar contact
triggered the heavy fighter reaction near Magdeburg, and the force was directed
towards them by a microwave early warning (MEW) site ("Nuthouse") at
Gulpen, Netherlands.
In the 66th
Fighter Wing, the 353d and 357th Fighter Groups engaged approximately 200 Fw
190s of JG 300 and JG 301, with the 353d downing 22 and the 357th, 30 in the
ensuing combats. Captain Leonard K. "Kit" Carson, on the 38th mission
of his second tour and having nine previous credits, became the second 357th
pilot to become an "ace in a day", while Yeager and Capt John B.
England claimed four kills each. One week later, on 5 December, the 357th
escorted 3rd Division bombers to Berlin and encountered 100 more German
fighters, claiming 22 against a loss of two.
Fog and ice
conditions grounded the P-51s for much of December 1944, but during the German
Ardennes offensive the Eighth Air Force conducted the largest single operation
in its history on 24 December, dispatching 2,046 bombers and 853 fighters to
attack lines of communication and airfields in Germany. The 357th Fighter Group
launched a total of 76 Mustangs split into an "A" group of 25 led by
group commander Lt.Col. Irwin Dregne and a "B" group of 51 led by
Major Richard Peterson. Each group engaged large numbers of German fighters of
JG 300 near Fulda and the 357th as a whole shot down 30 more, losing three
including a P-51 that collided with a 55th Fighter Group Mustang.
In the first two
weeks of January 1945 the 357th along with all Eighth Air Force groups
supported bomber attacks against German ground transportation during the Allied
counter-offensive in the Ardennes, strafing ground targets daily. However, on
14 January, strategic bombing resumed with attacks on oil installations near
Berlin. The 357th was tasked with protecting 3rd Air Division B-17s, employing
a variation of the escort tactic called the "Zemke Fan", designed to
lure in interceptors. Sending 66 Mustangs including spares, the 364 FS led the
mission flying ahead of the bombers at 26,000 feet (7,900 m), the 362nd
flew close escort over the lead combat box of bombers while the 363d flew
farther back over the third box at higher altitude.
Near Brandenburg,
the 357th observed the contrails of more than 200 fighters approaching the lead
bomber combat box from the southeast. The heavily armored
"sturmgruppen" Fw 190s of II/JG 300 attacked the B-17s in
"company front" formations of eight abreast, while a protective force
of 100 Bf 109s of JG 300's other three gruppen attempted to cover them from
32,000. The 364 FS attacked and broke up the sturmgruppen formations, which
were pursued by the trailing 363rd FS. The German top cover attempted to enter
the mêlée and were intercepted by the 362 FS, quickly joined by the 364th. The
30-minute battle resulted in 56.5 German fighters claimed as shot down, by far
the largest single day kill of the war by an Eighth Air Force group.
Including the
victories of group staff flying with various squadrons, the 364th is credited
with 23.5 kills, the 362d with 20, and the 363rd with 12. Ironically, two of
the most prolific aces of the 363rd FS, Capt. Bud Anderson and Capt. Chuck
Yeager, had been assigned to the mission but scored no kills. On the last
mission of their second tours, they were sent as spares and broke away before
contact to make an impromptu farewell tour of Europe that included buzzing
neutral Switzerland and Paris, France. Even so, the mission resulted in five
more aces for the 357th (Dregne, Evans, Maxwell, Sublett and Weaver) and
immediate recognition of the feat by Eighth Air Force commanding General Jimmy
Doolittle. The group received its second Distinguished Unit Citation for the
mission.
In the four major
combats of 27 November 2 December, 24 December and 14 January, the 357th
Fighter Group claimed 137.5 aircraft against a loss of nine Mustangs. The 357th
had two more large-scale engagements with German fighters before the end of the
war. On 2 March 1945, escorting B-17s to Ruhland, the group encountered its
frequent foes JGs 300 and 301 a final time, shooting down 14 and losing one
Mustang. On the way back to base, strafing airfields, the group had an
additional four P-51s shot down by flak, with two pilots killed. On 24 March,
flying an area patrol near Gütersloh to protect the Allied airborne crossing of
the Rhine, it encountered 20 Bf 109s of JG 27 and shot down 16 without loss.
The
Jagdverbände, severely depleted, turned to jet interceptions beginning 9
February 1945, in an attempt to stop the onslaught of Allied heavy bombers. The
Allies countered by flying combat air patrol missions over German airfields,
intercepting the Me 262s and Ar 234s as they took off and landed. The tactic
resulted in increasing numbers of jets shot down and controlled the dangerous
situation, particularly as the amount of German-controlled territory shrank
daily. The 357th claimed an additional 12.5 jets destroyed during this period
to total 18.5 for the war, and destroyed three others on the ground. The 357th
flew its 313th and final combat mission on 25 April 1945, without contact or
loss.