WW II ACE STORIES

With The U.S.A.A.F.

Written by Thomas McKelvey Cleaver .

5. The Battle of Germany - Spring 1944.

6. The End Of The Blakeslee Era and On To Victory.

The Debden Eagles.

Spitfire Vb of 335th Squadron, 4th Fighter Group, 1942

The Fourth was given the pre-war RAF base at Debden in East Anglia, with brick barracks and batmen to wake them for a mission, living quarters few other American airmen would experience in England during the war. They continued to fly their Spitfire Vb's on cross-channel sweeps as they had in the RAF.

In January 1943, Chesley Peterson - at 24, the youngest full Colonel in American military history - became Group C.O. In February, the dreaded P-47 Thunderbolt, an airplane the exact opposite of the Spitfire arrived. Over the next month the Group gradually gave up their beloved Spitfires and went into an operational funk they would not come out of for a year.

The P-47 was huge, compared to the Spitfire
In early 1943, the P-47 was nearly as short-ranged as the Spitfire. Big and heavy, it was no dogfighter, and though heavily armed with eight .50 machineguns, the official combat tactic was to stay above 20,000 feet. Pilots were told the airplane could not hold its own with the Bf-109 or Fw-190 below that altitude. Gradually through 1943, the P-47 would extend its range into western Germany, but it still could not escort the bombers all the way to the target. Missions like Schweinfurt-Regensburg on 17 August severely tested the U.S.A.A.F. theory of the self-defending bomber formation. In September 1943, on a mission to Paris, Jim Goodson exhausted his ammunition shooting three Fw-190s off then-Deputy Group Commander Don Blakeslee 's P-47. Goodson, with brand-new wingman Bob Wehrman, escorted a badly shot-up Blakeslee back to England, with Goodson unable to tell Wehrman he was out of ammo as they made passes to scare away Focke-Wulfs intent on finishing off Blakeslee.

SHOT FULL OF HOLES
Don Blakeslee's P-47 Upon Return From The Paris Mission
September 1943
"Black Thursday," the Schweinfurt Raid of 14 October 1943 in which 60 of 290 B-17s and B-24s were shot down by the Luftwaffe while more than a hundred others suffered major damage, effectively ended unescorted daylight bombing raids. Eighth Air Force was spared the embarassment of admitting they had been beaten by the Luftwaffe by six weeks of bad weather which effectively prevented any long-distance raids, but something had to change.

Three events happened during those six weeks between October-December 1943 that would change the war over Germany: first was the arrival of the 20th and 55th Figher Groups with P-38 Lightnings, the first fighter that could escort the bombers deep into Germany, though it was hampered by engine problems at the altitudes required; second was fitting of two pressurized drop tanks to the P-47, doubling its range; third - and most important - was the arrival of the P-51 Mustang, the plane that would change the war and send the Fourth Fighter Group into glory.

The first group to use the Mustang was the 354th, a unit of the tactical Ninth Air Force. The USAAF didn't know what it had when it got the Merlin-powered P-51B until it was discovered that with two drop tanks, the P-51 could theoretically fly to Berlin.

Don Blakeslee first met the P-51 that December, when he led the 354th on their first operations. It flew like a Spitfire with long range! He knew he had found what the Fourth Fighter Group had been looking for.

The Battle of Germany - Spring 1944.

Don Blakeslee was two months shy of his 26th Birthday when he was promoted to Colonel and given command of the Fourth. Operation Point Blank - the Battle of Germany - was about to begin. If the Eighth couldn't break the Luftwaffe that spring, there would be no invasion of Europe come summer.

The Fourth set a good record during Big Week, the ten days of strikes against German aircraft production that marked the beginning of the battle. With that under his belt, Blakeslee could argue for Mustangs. When he was told the Fourth was low on the list to get the P-51 he convinced General Kepner, CO, 8th Fighter Command, by promising the group would be operational within 24 hours because "we've all flown Spitfires." When the airplanes arrived February 24, 1944, he said "learn to fly 'em on the way to the target."

Don Gentile taxies out on the first Berlin raid
6 March 1944
On 6 March 1944, the Eighth Air Force struck Berlin for the first time. Hermann Goering later said that "the day I saw Mustangs over Berlin, I knew the jig was up."

During March and April, 1944, German pilot losses exceeded total combat losses for the previous two years. These were the "old hares," the experienced pilots without whom an air force is a mere shell. Their replacements, undertrained youngsters barely able to fly their FW-190s and Bf-109s straight and level were only barely better than no replacements at all. By mid-April 1944, the Fourth had scored over 500 victories and was personally awarded the Distinguished Unit Citation by SHAEF Commander General Dwight D. Eisenhower.

Don Blakeslee cuts cake celebrating 500th victory
April 1944
In May 1944, targets were switched to tactical targets in Northern France, preparatory to D-Day. From D-Day on for the next two weeks, all missions by 8th Air Force - both fighters and bombers - were in support of the ground troops. The 8th Air Force had won the Battle of Germany.

By late March, the Luftwaffe stopped coming up to fight. Groups were ordered to go "down on the deck" to destroy the aircraft on the ground. German airfields were ringed with flak, and the pilot who survived one low fast pass over a 'drome was lucky indeed. In fact, 3/4 of total 8th AF fighter losses would be on ground strafing missions; almost all the top aces were lost on these attacks where there was literally no place to hide, rather than in air combat. By July 1944, the Fourth's losses were so high on ground strafing missions that a group of pilots at a replacement center rebelled at being ordered to join the unit.

The End Of The Blakeslee Era and On To Victory.

Don Blakeslee (WD-C) leads 4th Fighter Group on Shuttle Mission to Russia
On June 21, 1944, the Fourth Fighter Group participated in the first "shuttle mission," escorting a group of bombers that hit targets in eastern Germany, then flew on to Poltava in the Ukraine. Unfortunately, they were shadowed by Luftwaffe aircraft, and that night the field was bombed with heavy losses among the parked bombers and fighters. The Fourth flew two missions over Romania before flying on to Italy in July, then back to Debden.

By late summer, the Fourth was a shadow of what it had been during the glory days of March and April. The group had lost almost all its top aces either through strafing shoot-downs or rotation home. The Germans seldom came up to offer a fight. Don Blakeslee was pulled from operations in October 1944. Without their dynamo, the group seemed to deflate. Colonel Claiborne Kinnard, an ace from the 355th Fighter Group, came to command the 4th and "instill some discipline," but was unsuccessful and left after a month. After Don Blakeslee , anyone else was second-best. In late November, Col. Everett Stewart took command. A professional officer, Stewart was strong in all the areas of command where Blakeslee had been weak, and he soon became the best-liked commander the group had served under.

Pierce McKennon in "Ridge Runner III"
April 1945
In late April, 1945, the Fourth took a long mission to Czechosolvakia, where they ran across ten Germans willing to fight and shot down seven of them. With these victories, the Fourth Fighter Group's total score stood at 1,016 1/2, the highest total of any American fighter unit in history. The kids who couldn't qualify to join the U.S.A.A.F., the ones who had flunked out of training, had demonstrated their ability in action, the only place it matters.