359th Fighter Group

HERALDRY

INTRODUCTION

More than 75 per cent of the 359th FG’s missions were escort, a job closely supervised by Col Avelin P Tacon Jr who did not tolerate a mass exodus from the bomber stream to chase small numbers of enemy fighters. Tacon’s strict discipline earned him the nickname ‘Hard Tack’, and his supervision also won the 359th the undying gratitude of bomber crewmen.

Col Avelin P Tacon Jr, commander of the 359th FG from January 1943 to November 1944. ‘Hard Tack’ ran a tight ship, and some pilots felt he was preventing them from winning the war, but in truth his discipline kept many of them alive, while those who broke rank often failed to return. Tacon held several command positions during his military career, and retired from the USAF with the rank of major general in 1967

Take the story of Lt David B Archibald, who spotted a crippled B-24 being attacked by a Bf 109. After chasing off the enemy, he moved in close to the bomber and gestured for the pilot to follow him. With two engines out and a third on fire, the crew jettisoned equipment to lighten their aircraft. Flying through an overcast sky at treetop height, Archibald led the Liberator towards an advanced Allied airfield in France. After gaining enough altitude to bail out, and assured they were over friendly territory, the crew jumped. Archibald landed at the airfield, and minutes later met the bomber pilot, who gave him a grateful hug.

The men of the 359th often carried out their assignments with pure abandon, and that spirit was exemplified by Lt Ralph E Kibler Jr when he chased an Fw 190 down the streets of Hamm, Germany, until it crashed head-on into a three-storey building. The 359th’s pilots excelled as train-killers and at destroying aircraft on the ground – both very hazardous jobs – and there were missions on which they seemingly tried to machine-gun Germany into submission.

They also lay claim to several firsts and other noteworthy feats. Col Tacon was the first Eighth Air Force pilot to spot and chase the Me 163 rocket fighter, whilst the first Me 163 kill went to Lt Col John B Murphy. On 27 August 1944, Lt Lawrence A Zizka scored the only victory credited to VIII Fighter Command on that day. In a repeat performance, on 15 March 1945, Capt Ray S Wetmore bagged an Me 163 – the odds of the same fighter group scoring the only kill of the day twice are astronomical, especially with hundreds of Allied fighters prowling the skies. See the Significant Missions list for other incidents.

For its actions on 11 September 1944, the 359th received a Distinguished Unit Citation, and for its participation in other major operations six Battle Ribbons to adorn its Guidon. The ribbons are: Air Offensive Europe (preparation for invasion of Normandy); Normandy (invasion support); Northern France (support for the drive across France); Rhineland (support for the airborne invasion of the Netherlands and the drive into the Rhine); Ardennes-Alsace (support during the Battle of the Bulge); and Central Europe (support for the final drive across Germany).

Numbers do not tell the whole story of a combat unit’s success, but the 359th’s statistics give an indication of what it achieved.

Its operations stretched over 17 months, with 349 missions and 13,455 sorties being flown. The group’s losses (including escapees and evaders) stood at 125 pilots and aircraft, with a further 228 fighters being battle-damaged. In return, the 359th destroyed 255.5 enemy aircraft in the air and 121.33 on the ground.

The list goes on – 335 locomotives destroyed, 147 locomotives damaged, 1346 railway cars destroyed or damaged, 144 motor vehicles destroyed, 924,807 rounds of 0.50-cal ammunition expended and 487 500-lb, 325 250-lb and 80 100-lb bombs dropped.

WHAT IS A FIGHTER GROUP?

The 359th FG was assigned to VIII Fighter Command, as a part of the 66th Fighter Wing (FW), until November 1943, when it was moved to the 67th FW. There it would remain, except for a brief return to the 66th during the invasion of Normandy.

Ground support was provided by the 448th Air Service Group (Headquarters Section and Base Services Squadron), the 824th Air Engineering Squadron, the 648th Air Material Squadron and the 3rd Gunnery and Tow-Target Flight. It took about 2000 men to staff the group’s combat and support units.

The 359th FG consisted of three squadrons – the 368th, 369th and 370th FSs. Each squadron had 16 fighters, not including spares, divided into four flights. These flights were Red, White, Blue and Yellow. Extra flights were designated as Black and/or Green. These colours were strictly for radio identification, and visual identification was not dealt with until the final months of the war when the dorsal strakes on P-51Ds flown by flight leaders were striped in the appropriate colour. These stripes were either horizontal or vertical.

To visually identify the squadrons, the rudders were painted yellow for the 368th, red for the 369th and dark blue for the 370th. Squadrons were also identified by code letters applied to the sides of the fuselage. These were CV for the 368th, IV for the 369th and CS for the 370th. The double letter codes were applied forward of the national insignia, and the individual aircraft code letter was located aft. When the number of fighters in a squadron exceeded the number of letters in the alphabet, a duplication occurred. Therefore, in order to distinguish between two fighters with the code letter A, for instance, the A on one of the fighters would either be underlined as A, or similarly capped – that would read as Bar-A.

Lt Ralph E Kibler Jr and the 370th FS’s mascot, the ubiquitous ‘Flak’. Like so many other talented dogfighters, Kibler fell victim to groundfire while strafing, being shot down and killed in P-51B 42-106865 over Reims-Champagne airfield on 11 May 1944

The letter codes changed only once, and this occurrence was unique to the 359th FG. The switch involved the 370th’s code letters some time after the middle of March 1944 when CR changed to CS.

The radio call signs employed by the group were as follows:

The group’s P-47s boasted Olive Drab on uppersurfaces and Neutral Gray undersides. To prevent gunners from mistaking the P-47 for an Fw 190, a 12-in white band was painted on the leading circumference of the engine cowling and chordwise across the vertical and horizontal tail surfaces. This treatment was also given to the P-51 to prevent it from being mistaken for the Bf 109.

The group’s distinctive green nose first appeared on the its P-47s during March 1944 in the form of a 24-in medium green band painted around the forward section of the engine cowling. The first green to grace the noses of their Mustangs covered the spinner and the cowling back to the first exhaust stack. In November 1944 the paint changed to dark green, and was extended past the exhaust stacks in a downward curve to the front of the wingroot and wheel wells.

Hours before D-Day, the 359th’s P-51s were painted with ‘invasion stripes’. One month later these were removed from the uppersurfaces of the wings and fuselage, or sprayed over with a coat of aluminium lacquer.

Both group and squadron insignia featured the unicorn – a symbol of strength and virtue. The 368th FS’s motif was a unicorn head with a lightning bolt clenched in its mouth (referred to as a thunderbolt during the P-47 period). The 369th had a unicorn in full stride, superimposed on a lightning bolt, while the 370th’s unicorn was displayed in a bucking posture. The group emblem was a left profile of a unicorn head on an escutcheon. Above the head were three stars, with three, five and nine points. Below the escutcheon, in Latin, were the words ‘CUM LEONE’ (with lions), denoting that the USAAF was fighting alongside the RAF.

The 359th was based at East Wretham (Army Air Force Station 133) in Norfolk, on a former country estate. Wretham Hall was an imposing three-storey structure consisting of some 75 rooms, and was used as living quarters for the officers. The base had previously been occupied by RAF bomber units. Wretham Hall was destroyed by fire in 1949.

THE BEGINNING

The 359th FG was created on 20 December 1942 with the issuing of War Department Order AG 320.2. On 15 January 1943 the First Air Force issued an order activating the group at Westover Field, Massachusetts. Lt Col Avelin P Tacon Jr was put in command.

Throughout March the 359th received enlisted men from various units already stationed at Westover, although most came from training schools. During that month the squadron leaders were assigned – Capt Albert R Tyrrell to the 368th FS, Maj Rockford V Gray to the 369th and Maj John B Murphy to the 370th. Murphy was the only one with combat experience, having flown with the 343rd FG’s 11th FS in the Aleutians, where he had shared in the destruction of a Japanese Nakajima E8N ‘Dave’ floatplane.

Training began in earnest during April, with the 368th and 369th FSs moving to Grenier Field, New Hampshire, while the 370th went to nearby Bedford Army Air Base. Flying time was limited, since each squadron had only two or three P-47s. Between May and July the unit rotated to Republic Field, Long Island, to receive new Thunderbolts, and it was during this time that Lt John H Oliphint looped the Brooklyn Bridge. After landing, he found the airframe was seriously twisted, and officials at the Republic plant were shocked by the damage.

Two early-build P-47Ds of the 369th FS are seen at Grenier Field, New Hampshire, in April 1943. Incidents in which the landing gear failed to extend on the Thunderbolt were common enough to warrant a mention in the official group records even after the 359th FG had entered combat in the ETO (Palicka)

The squadrons gravitated back to Westover Field during August, and at dawn on 2 October 1943 most of the 359th FG left by train for Camp Kilmer, New Jersey. Five days later the group boarded ships in New York Harbor. Headquarters personnel and the 368th boarded the USAT Argentina, the 369th the Thurston and the 370th took the former Dutch motor vessel Sloterdyjk. They were part of a large convoy that sailed before dawn on 8 October.

The Argentina docked at Liverpool on 19 October, with the headquarters element and the 368th setting off for East Wretham, in Norfolk. Their trains arrived at Thetford, about five miles south of East Wretham, and the troops marched to their new home. The citizens of Thetford held their noses as they cheered the passing Yanks, Phillip Dupont, a radio technician, stating ‘we were quite ripe after all those days on ship without a shower’. Meanwhile, the 369th and 370th disembarked at Glasgow and Gourock.

Lt Col Tacon went to work immediately, but with little emphasis on close order drill or spit and polish. The result was that in less than eight weeks the base was ready for combat operations.

The railway station at Thetford was just five miles south of the group’s new base at East Wretham, and the men of the 359th completed the final leg of their long journey from the US on foot

An aerial view of East Wretham prior to the arrival of the 359th FG. The airfield’s control tower is obscured by the wingtip visible in the upper right. The hangar right of centre was used by the 370th FS. The strip running parallel to the trailing edge of the wing was the main runway, and it was covered with perforated steel planking during the winter of 1944-45. East Wretham had been hastily brought into service by the RAF in the later summer of 1940, and had been used as a bomber base until occupied by the Eighth Air Force in October 1943

The base control tower at East Wretham was unlike any other at the myriad Eighth Air Force airfields scattered across East Anglia. One thing that was the same, however, was the fleet of crash and recovery vehicles typically clustered alongside the tower, ready to spring into action at a moment’s notice

Nearby Wretham Hall, with its 75 rooms, served as home to the 359th’s officer corps during the group’s time in England. This outstanding stately home was totally destroyed by fire in 1949

VIII Fighter Command required every new fighter group to be led into combat by experienced pilots. To achieve this, the 359th’s senior flying officers – Lt Col Tacon and Majs William H Swanson, John Murphy, Albert ‘Trigger’ Tyrrell and Rockford Gray, as well as 12 captains and lieutenants – were sent on detached service to the 78th FG, at Duxford. Simultaneously, Maj Luther H Richmond of the 352nd FG temporarily moved to East Wretham to act as the 359th’s flying group commander.

On 11 December 1943 the 78th FG supported B-24s returning from Emden, in Germany. During the mission the 359th’s Capt Chauncey S Irvine and his wingman Lt Col Tacon unsuccessfully bounced a Bf 109, while Lt James R Pino, who was leading a top cover flight, was bounced by German fighters – they too failed to score. That night the detachment returned to East Wretham.

MISSIONS

Due to space limitations, this book cannot cover every mission flown by the 359th, and not all strafing claims have been included.

On the morning of 13 December, 42 P-47s of the 359th had just landed following a practice flight when a field order was received assigning them a fighter sweep over France. Only 36 Thunderbolts were refuelled in time to take part, with Maj Luther Richmond leading the group on its operational debut. The aircraft crossed the enemy coast over Gravelines, made a sweep around St Omer and exited near Le Tréport.

Maj Richmond led again on the 20th as the 359th laid on an escort for B-17s bound for Bremen, in Germany. Of the 59 P-47s that took off, no fewer than 22 returned early – 17 were aborts and five were assigned as their escorts. Eight aborts were due to engine trouble and seven from the failure of drop tanks to release.

R/V (rendezvous) with the bombers was made off Texel Island at 1101 hrs. A flight of P-47s, providing top cover at 32,000 ft, spotted six enemy aircraft at 35,000 ft shadowing the bombers, but did not pursue. Escort was dropped at Zuidlaarder Lake, and the 359th returned on a reciprocal course. Meanwhile, an investigation began into the possible sabotage of the Thunderbolt flown by Lt Herman E King of the 370th FS.

P-47Ds from the 370th FS line up prior to taking off from East Wretham in early 1944. The squadron’s CR code changed to CS in mid-March 1944. Wearing the code letters CR-P, P-47D-6 42-74737 was lost on 11 April 1944 when it ran out of fuel after suffering flak damage. Its pilot, Lt Thomas P ‘Tepee’ Smith, force-landed at Macou, in France, and evaded capture for five months. The aircraft running up to the left of CR-P is P-47D-6 42-74719, which was the first mount of future five-kill ace William Hodges. Indeed, he claimed