382nd Fighter Squadron, 363rd Fighter Group

1943 -1944 From Hamilton Field, California to France

Some of my old WW II pictures. Below are most of the pilots of the squadron, November 1943 at Hayward Army Airfield, Hayward, California

Bingham,     Aldrich,     Pawlak,     Deeds,     Edwards,     Watson

Lewis,     Theil,     W. McGee,     Kunz,     Bullard,     Schmidt

Rook,     Clark,     Schillereff,     Coble,     Heberlein,     Boatright

Pollard,     Brink,     Thompson,     Cahill,     Pederson.

These are the pilots of the 382nd fighter Squadron, 363 rd Fighter Group. We had finished nearly a year of our stateside flying training in the Bell P-39 Airacobra , < Look at y. Our flying training consisted of flying the P-39N model in Formation Flying, Aerial Gunnery against a towed target ( 4 foot by 20 foot usually towed by a P-39D) and ground gunnery which we fired at a 36" diameter target in the center of a 10 foot square support. Although we had the 37 MM cannon, the two 50 Cal and four 30 cal machine guns we usually only fired the two 50 Cal on ground gunnery. On aerial gunnery it was usually the two 50's but on occasion I was able to load 5 practice rounds of 37 mm. If we fired the regular 37 mm High Explosive shells on a practice target we were charged some $30.00 per shot ! !

Lt. Col. Harry N. Renshaw, Commander of the 328th Fighter Group was probably the most experienced gunnery expert in the entire Army Air Corps at that time was instrumental in getting us off to a really fine start in our training. He had competed in the 1936 Olympic Pistol competition and had been awarded an Olympic Medal. He also had developed the Renshaw system for aircraft recognition training. It consisted of silhouettes of various aircraft in varied positions and they could be flashed on a screen in a darkened room for various periods of time. The student would enter on a test paper his appraisal of the plane depicted in the quick flash on the screen. Aerial gunnery is the most demanding flight experience of any. To be good, requires an accurate estimation of the "lead" required that you aim ahead of and in the correct estimated path of the target. This visual perception continuously changes as you approach the target and are drawn into a stern chase. We had to break-off our shooting at 20 degrees to keep from possibly hitting the tow aircraft.

Also in our training was the Link Trainer, instrument flying under a hood, night flying and night interceptions where the Army Ground anti-aircraft batteries would vector us toward an enemy target by flashing their searchlights vertically (for us to rendezvous over and then lowering the light beam in the direction we were to fly. Remember this was before radar was in use. The anti-aircraft ground crews got their information over telephone lines from Ground Observers. Very, very primitive by today's standards.

At the time this photograph was taken we did not know yet just where we were going but were hoping to go to England rather than North Africa or to the Pacific Theatre. Also, I had been a test pilot at Wright Field and had flown test flights in the Republic P-47 Thunderbolt < Click on Aircraft--then P-51 and P-47 >.

In my opinion the P-51B was far superior to the P-47 in that it could fly higher, further, faster, had a superior ability to turn and maneuver. The only drawback was it was not as sturdy and the P-47 with an air cooled engine was much less vulnerable than the liquid cooled Packard built Rolls Royce Merlin that made the P-51B so desirable.

We did go to England, a long troop train ride from Hayward to Camp Kilmer, New Jersey. At Camp Kilmer we were given the POM (Preparation for Overseas Movement) training which consisted mainly of going thru gas chambers, and learning how to identify various gases by smell and how to don a gas mask and our immunization shots were brought up to date. After about a week we boarded the Queen Elizabeth for a 6 day ride to Gourock, Scotland. Then it was via a troop train to a newly constructed airbase at Keevil a small village near Bath in southwest England.

This was part of the training, crashes !!! We had quite a few, some were just careless mistakes that damaged or destroyed aircraft, one was a fatality, and I was the pilot of the P-39 in this picture. I had just taken off from Santa Rosa Army Airfield and the engine quit when I was about 50-100 feet in the air, going about 140 MPH and it was just wham, bam and I took out 27 trees of an orchard. In those days nobody had thought about "strong helmets" to protect the head in accidents like this. We wore just a thin summer weight light canvass strap-on. They called them helmets, but were just to hold the oxygen mask over your nose and mouth, it had a microphone built in, and earphones for to hear the radio were over each ear.

Although we did have shoulder straps, I was not wearing them when this happened and consequently my head hit the gunsight and I received a cut on the forehead at the hairline, the doctor cleaned it and put a bandage over and off I went. I was back flying the next day. The date, time, place and aircraft serial number are on the photo.

This is me beside my P-39 at Hayward Army Airfield. I had named all my aircraft "Roscoe II"

This photo was taken in late November 1943. At that time I was Commander 382nd Fighter Squadron and Base Commander, Hayward Army Airfield.
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