Mustang the Inspiration The Plane That Turned the Tide in World War Two

157 Pages·2013·2.42 MB·English

by  Philip Kaplan

FOR TÉA AND GILLIAN

First published in Great Britain in 2013 by
PEN & SWORD AVIATION
An imprint of
Pen & Sword Books Ltd
47 Church Street
Barnsley
South Yorkshire
S70 2AS

Copyright © Philip Kaplan, 2013
9781783830077

The right of Philip Kaplan to be identified as Author of this work
has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright,
Designs and Patents Act 1988.

A CIP catalogue record for this book is
available from the British Library

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in
any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical including photocopying,
recording or by any information storage and retrieval system,
without permission from the Publisher in writing.

Printed and bound in the UK by MPG

Pen & Sword Books Ltd incorporates the Imprints of Pen & Sword Aviation,
Pen & Sword Family History, Pen & Sword Maritime, Pen & Sword Military,
Pen & Sword Discovery, Pen & Sword Politics, Pen & Sword Atlas,
Pen & Sword Archaeology, Wharncliffe Local History, Wharncliffe True Crime,
Wharncliffe Transport, Pen & Sword Select, Pen & Sword Military Classics,
Leo Cooper, The Praetorian Press, Claymore Press, Remember When,
Seaforth Publishing and Frontline Publishing
For a complete list of Pen & Sword titles please contact
PEN & SWORD BOOKS LIMITED
47 Church Street, Barnsley, South Yorkshire, S70 2AS, England
E-mail: [email protected]
Website: www.pen-and-sword.co.uk
Table of Contents
Dedication
Title Page
Copyright Page
Acknowledgements
ENGLAND EXPECTS
INSPIRATION
COMPARING APPLES WITH LEMONS
BLAKESLEE’S DEAL
ON TO BERLIN
HIGH ACHIEVERS
STROBELL AND OVERSTREET
THREE TURNING, ONE BURNING
DOUBLE-BIRD
KOREA
FOURTH BUT FIRST
POSTWAR
KEEP ‘EM FLYING
FLYING MUSTANG
WAR STORIES
BIBLIOGRAPHY
The author is particularly grateful to the following people for their kind,
generous assistance in the research, preparation, and development of this book:
Malcolm Bates, Tony Bianchi, Robert Cooper, David Forrest, Royal Frey, Adolf
Galland, James Goodson, Stephen Grey, Roger Hall, Eric Holloway, Charles
Hewitt, Jack Ilfrey, Frank Johnson, Lynn Johnson, Hargi and Neal Kaplan, Brian
Kingcome, Walker Mahurin, Eric Marsden, Judy and Rick McCutcheon, Merle
Olmsted, Alan Geoffrey Page, Gunther Rall, Ray Wagner, Hubert Zemke.

Grateful acknowledgement to the following for the use of excerpts from their
published and unpublished texts: J.G. Ballard, Donald Blakeslee, Benjamin O.
Davis, Jr., Alan Deere, John De Vries, James Farmer, James H. Doolittle, Irwin
Dregne, Roger Freeman, Don Gentile, Bill Geiger, John Godfrey, James
Goodson, Lee Gover, Grover Hall, Jr., William Hess, Thomas Hitchcock, Jack
Ilfrey, Kelly Johnson, Walter Konantz, Harvey Mace, Merle Olmsted, William
Overstreet, Charles Portal, Edgar Schmued, Robert Strobell, Ray Wagner, Henry
C. Woodrum, Chuck Yeager, Hub Zemke.
If it looks right, it will probably fly right—a tired old saying among airmen, but
one that persists. Think if you will of the handful of aeroplanes that most people
would probably agree are the best-looking examples of all. The list is short but
distinguished and the proof is in the enthusiastic common view of most pilots
who have flown them—for nearly all, it was love at first sight and first flight.
For most that little list includes the Vickers-Supermarine Spitfire (especially the
early Marks), the Douglas DC-3, the Hawker Hunter, the Lockheed
Constellation, the Concord, and the North American Mustang. Of these, the
Spitfire and Mustang stand out and remain extra special to the majority of pilots
who have been privileged to fly them. One common thread exists among those
who have experienced both of these fine machines; an opinion that seems to hold
up even after a lifetime of flying the best the aviation design community has
created. “While the Spitfire may have a slight edge in light-touch handling, if I
have to go to war in one type, I’ll take the Mustang every time.” I have heard
that sentiment repeatedly and without reservation.
Former transport pilot Len Morgan noted his impressions after his first flight
in a Mustang: “The feeling of power and speed and freedom of action was, to
one of my previous experience, utterly exhilarating. It was like getting out of a
moving van and onto to motorcycle. They would have smiled back at the field
had they been able to witness the cautious experiments that followed—mild
dives with the airspeed walking up past the 450 mark, zooms that sent the rate-
of-climb needle to the peg, vertical turns that ate up a lot of sky and forced the g-
meter up past 4 (before it faded out). Man, it was fun! As much fun as learning
to fly all over again.”
Near the end of 1943, the bold—many called it misguided—American
campaign of daylight precision bombing raids on strategic targets in German-
occupied Europe was failing on a grand scale. The rate of loss in men and planes
had become staggering and unsustainable; the achievements to that point
questionable. The U.S. Eighth Army Air Force had been fighting its way to and
from targets that were savagely defended by flak gunners on the ground and
determined Luftwaffe fighter pilots in the air. The American bomber crews were
largely dependent on their own air gunners for their defence; the P-47, P-38, and
Spitfire fighters sent up to escort and protect the bombers simply lacked the
range to stay with their charges all the way into Germany and back to their
English bases. And the bomber crewmen were unable to protect themselves well
enough to prevent the slaughter they were facing late in that grim year.
The importance of the so-called Combined Bombing Offensive; the RAF
operating by night and the Americans by day, lay in the Allied determination to
operating by night and the Americans by day, lay in the Allied determination to
stop German war production and end Germany’s ability to continue the war. By
the fall of 1943, however, the loss rate of Eighth Bomber Command had reached
a critical point and its commanders were forced to temporarily suspend bombing
operations, lick their wounds and regroup. The notion that a large, well-
organized bomber force could effectively protect itself in such attacks had been
proven wrong. It was obvious that a new, highly capable long-range escort
fighter was desperately needed to shepherd the heavy bombers of the Eighth on
their lengthy missions, raising their odds of survival to an acceptable level.
That fighter, the North American P-51 Mustang, began arriving in England in
small numbers late in 1943. The first ones were allocated to the fledgling 354th
Fighter Group, Ninth Air Force, whose combat debut escorting the B-17s and B-
24s of the Eighth, took place in December. It was the first sign of a rescue for
the daylight bombing effort. By early 1944, Mustangs were filling the
inventories of the fighter groups of the Eighth, making possible the large,
powerful and sustained attacks its planners in the former girl’s school at
Wycombe Abbey, Bucks., intended. The show was once again on the road.

In the Mustang, the strategic bombers of the Eighth finally had the plane that
could go the distance with them and give them the measure of security they
required to survive and prevail. The journey of this great fighter plane begins
with an early Second World War requirement of the British for a new fighter
more capable than the Spitfire and Hurricane of the time, and the marvelous
marriage of an American airframe with the Rolls-Royce Merlin aero engine. It
considers the competition being built by other American warplane makers and
looks at the arrival in England of the first Mustang escort fighters. It continues
with raids on Germany, experiences of high achieving pilots, the long-range
bombing campaigns in both Europe and the Pacific wars, the example of the
famous 4th Fighter Group, the Korean War of the 1950s, the postwar activity of
the Mustang, the warbird phenomenon, and concludes with a taste of what it was
like learning to fly the “Cadillac of the skies”, as the young boy in J.G. Ballard’s
Empire of the Sun refers to the liberating Mustang flashing low overhead near
his Shanghai prison camp.