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Headquarters 404th Fighter Group, Station 414 England
Unit history for the month of April 1944
by 2nd Lt William P Corley
Air Corps Historical Officer
5-10-44
(Note: where possible this and other such reports has been produced verbatim, including any spelling mistakes, use of American English etc. Abbreviations have, where possible, been enhanced with full text descriptions. - John Levesley)
Section 1
1. Organisation : Negative
2. Strength:
A. Officers 27
B Enlisted Men 68
3. Date of arrival and departure from each station occupied in the European Theater of Operations (ETO) : Arrived at Station 414 on 4 April 1944 and remained there throughout the month of April.
4. Losses in Action: Negative
5. Awards and Decorations of members of the unit: Negative.
Section 11
Training:
During the month of April the intelligence section set up training programs for all the pilots and attendance of all was required. The subjects covered included aircraft recognition, geography, air sea rescue, airdrome control, combat reports, flying regulations, high altitude flying, German air force, cross country flying, Prisoners of War (PW) and Escape and Evasion (E&E), meteorology, Direction finding (D/F) method of interception and use of contactors, Radio Telephony (R/T) procedure, machine guns and ammunition, weather, air support tactics, night flying organization as aid to night flying, dinghy drill, smoke screening tactics, radio scheme and sector flying control. Three lectures on escape and evasion were also given to all pilots and E&E kits issued to all squadrons. Many visiting officers came and gave talks on the subjects of these courses as well as Winkton's own specialist instructors.
Many officers and enlisted men were sent to schools and to acclimate themselves to the systems of operations in the ETO.
Operations
The group did not become operational until 1 May 1944: Therefore there were no operational missions flown. The pilots flew on training flights and also did some night flying.
Notes of Special Interest
An officers' club was set up in the rear of group operations and intelligence in an old barn and it has been the scene of many happy gatherings.
A separate officers' mess was established for the entire group: heretofore the officers had been messing with the enlisted men of their respective organizations.
Recreation
The officers and enlisted men have had their initial taste of cinemas in the UK; under the direction of Captain Buckberry, Group Special Services Officer, movies have been shown on the average of 3 times a week. The officers have utilized the group briefing room and the enlisted men have used the hangar for their movies.
Under the direction of Cpl Salvatore D'Aura a glee club was organised aboard ship while
coming overseas and since arrival here the club has made great improvements. As a result
of their fine singing they have built up a reputation and have had many requests to
perform before many units and commands in the ETO.
On April 13 the 404 had its first fatal casualty at Station 414. During an early familiarisation flight with a fully loaded P47, First Lt William Frost had to carry out an emergency return to the airfield, having notified the field controller that he had a fuel leak and needed to land quickly. The pilots at this time had relatively little experience of a flying the P47 fully loaded, aircraft at Myrtle Beach had had much of their armour removed and often the guns too. Lt Frost was considered a well above average pilot by his contemporaries, but flying a P47 with everything hanging, at slow speed and low level was difficult even for a good pilot if they had little experience of the type. Add the pressure of an emergency return, and the need probably to manouver by turning tight towards the airfield to avoid the village of Winkton, and Lt Frost would have been under enormous pressure. Sadly the aircraft slipped out of its tight turn and crashed into the field across the road from the Lamb Inn, only a few yards from the airfield boundary and a couple of hundred yards from the runway. Lt. Frost was laid to rest in the U.S. cemetery in Cambridge.
The 404th's first aircraft at Winkton.
Whilst talking to Hal Shook, when he visited Winkton on June 3rd 1999, he remembered that before the P47s arrived in early April the group had the loan of a Royal Air Force Percival Proctor (a single engined navigation/radio trainer and light communications aircraft) which they used for a short while in advance of their P47s arriving. It was rather underpowered and frightened Hal somewhat when he took off with full load one day. The Proctor was apprently provided by the RAF for Colonel McColpin's use in acknowedgment of his previous service with the RAF Eagle Squadrons.
506th Fighter Bomber Squadron AAF
404th Fighter Bomber Group AAF
Station 414 England
UNIT HISTORY FOR MONTH OF APRIL
BY
2nd Lt. MELVIN H. JOHNSON
SECTION I
1. Organization: Negative.
2. Strength: Squadron strength at the end of the period covered by the History consisted of 248 Enlisted men and 45 Officers, a total of 293.
SECTION II
1. Date of arrival and departure from each station in the ETO:
The unit arrived at its’ present location which is Winkton Airdrome, Station 414, 5
April 1944.
SECTION III
1. Losses in action: Negative
SECTION IV
1. Awards and decorations: Negative.
SECTION V
Part played in the War effort
Being new arrivals in this theatre during the period covered by this History the Squadron did not physically participate in the war effort. The month was for the greater part, devoted to training. Flying personnel received Recognition Training in Aircraft, Naval Vessels, and Tanks common to this theatre. Lectures and training classes were conducted on the following subjects, Escape and Evasion, Geography, Weather, Communications, Briefing and Interrogation, War Situation talks, and Flying Regulations in this Theatre.
Flying consisted of test flights of Aircraft received, Formation Flying, practice bombing and the test firing of guns.
All flying personnel were momentarily taken back to pre-war days when their passport photographs were taken. Civilian shirt, tie and coat made up their costume, prints were placed in their Escape Kits. Ground Officers found themselves busier than ever before with the setting up of their sections, assisting in the training of the flying personnel and acquainting themselves with the IX Fighter Command Directives, Memorandums and Orders.
The Orderly Room, Supply, enlisted men’s mess hall and kitchen were set up in the Squadron area while operations began to function in a RAF trailer near the line. A pilots’ assembly tent was set up adjacent to the trailer and Intelligence operated next to it. A large glider crate was secured, and from this a parachute department was constructed.
The line was centred about the Squadron hangar, communications, armament and ordnance all pitched their tents conveniently close to it. Tech Supply and the Engineering office operate from within the hangar itself.
P47s began coming in the middle of the month and the unit soon had it’s allotment. A toss of the coin, a sad smile, and Major Harold G Shook, Commanding Officer, turned and walked slowly away from the Group Operations office, the loser in a gamble of the three Squadrons to determine which of the squadrons was to receive the old P47s, and which were to be the lucky ones and receive the coveted P47D 22s, disappointed, but resorted to make the best of a bad toss and to make the other squadrons look up to them, the 506th pilots continued their training flights with renewed vim and nip.
Toward the end of the month, Major Shook, Captain Freemantle, Flight Leader, participated in three missions with the 368th Group (at Chilbolton in Hampshire), they were followed later by Captain McLaughlin and Lt Nichols. Capt. Engman and Lt Litchfield, Flight Leaders attended Ground Support School conducted by the RAF.
Intelligence Officer, Lt Joseph Cohn attended two schools, one at Ascot, the Ninth Air Force Orientation School, and the other was at Highgate, London where he received instructions for teaching Escape and Evasion.
Many Enlisted Men went on DS to various Operational Units and picked up valuable information in the realm of Mechanics, Communications and Armament.
Thus the stage was set, every one was in readiness for the first mission. Everybody knew his job, knew it’s significance, and was ready and sweating for "D" Day.
Section VI
1. Human Interest: Foxholes and camouflage discipline became an actuality rather than a
boring training lecture, and the dirt flew fast as the trenches shaped themselves into
life saving holes. The night Jerry flew overhead for the first time, the fox hole was
uppermost in the mind of every man – that is every man who hadn’t slept through
the weird wail of the sirens, the drone of the Jerry planes and the dull pop of the
distant ack-ack. Yes many of the men were surprised to find out the next morning that
Jerries had actually been overhead. Tent mates who had been awakened were given strict
orders to awake everyone in the tent the next time the Jerry-Bird flew over.
History - 507th Fighter Bomber squadron
The following is a narrative of our history for April 1 - 30 1944, which we now submit, a month late, with apologies.
Andrew F. Wilson
Capt., Air Corps, Historical Officer.
Narrative
April was a month of complete and utter readjustment in the life of the squadron. It began "all at sea" on the Union Castle line "Stirling Castle", in the middle of a convoy that appeared to be 30 ships strong. After several days of unusually warm weather, bright days and bare-chested sun-bathing on deck, sighting of land based birds, and rumors that we were off the Cape Verde Islands, the convoy took a generally northward bearing April 1st. Chief April Fool jokes, of dubious humor, were submarine alarms and tales about the FW-200's and He-177's that were (no doubt) trailing us from their Bay of Biscay bases.
The Stirling Castle
(In 1998 Andy Wilson sent me a lot of material which he had saved in his personal collection of information on the 404th. He sent me a copy of the Officers menu from the Sterling Castle. He says "On the face of it, it sounds like pretty good food. And maybe it was. What I do remember is that my sergeant and other enlisted men said they were cheated out of good food and called the ship the "Starving Castle".)
First sighting of land was the North Irish Coast about April 2nd, and as the ships moved into the Irish Sea, the convoy split up into three lines, some heading apparently for a Scotch port and our group heading south. Appropriately the waters of the Irish Sea turned out to be about the greenest we'd ever seen. With us was a British "baby" aircraft carrier, whose deck was lined with P-51's. "Our planes" every pilot in the squadron thought and hoped.
The evening of April 3rd we pulled into the mouth of the Mersey river, the water as calm as glass and the air still but for the cries of sea-gulls and the banging of anchor chains. The Welsh mountains, peaks cloud-masked, bulked up on the Southern shore.
The following morning we moved upstream to Liverpool, passing miles of docks enclosed by walls that looked like medieval castles. Every man lined the rails to inspect our flat unloading dock, waving at the first sight of English bobbies, in their long blue coats and tall domed hats, whistling at female "lorry" drivers, and loudly howling (in derision) when American MPs, spic and spotless in bright white helmets, gloves and leggings appeared. An elevated train line curved between a row of buildings two blocks in from the dock, and every now and then a three car orange painted train would go dragging by, very much like the old South Ferry "El" we'd left two weeks before in Manhattan. The ship was unloading all day but our squadron did not go down the gang plank till almost midnight. Then we filed off into a covered, stone paved, weakly lit alleyway, struggling and grunting with carbines, Tommy guns, barracks bags, and suitcases, puffed and heaved along for a few hundred yards into a dark railway station and right onto a waiting train. American Red Cross women and girls were there with very welcome refreshments, and after 14 days without seeing a woman, every man on the train was eager just to have the girls stop by the compartment windows and talk. A large masculine looking woman in uniform and cap with determination showing in the set of her chin kept striding up and down trying to keep us all in our places. She finally caught Capt. Bob Manss, assistant Group S-2 hopping out of the train to look for someone, and in a voice like a bull she shouted, "GET BACK ON THE TRAIN". He got.
We travelled all night, past Manchester, Derby, Birmingham and Bath, straining our eyes to see as much of this new, strange land as possible. We marvelled at the smoothness of the starting and stopping, unlike the jolting and jerking of American trains. We reached Bath by daylight, and while we lingered in the train yards, a friendly English conductor pointed out the first signs of bomb damage we'd seen -- holes in the station roof, and dwellings in several streets knocked to rubble
Members of 507 squadron wait at Christchurch Station for transport to Winkton April 5th 1944
(photo courtesy of Andrew F Wilson)
By this time we heard that our station was to be at Christchurch on the South coast. We wound along further South, heads sticking out of every window, necks craning for a look at every plane that passed by. "That's a Sunderland" or "there goes a Wimpy" or "hey Spits" or "look Typhoons!" We moved through Bournemouth to Christchurch, and there detrained. Trucks took us through narrow twisting streets and on out into the country, past a little village we later learned to call Winkton, then off the main paved road onto a dirt road through a farmyard and out onto a bumpy driving strip paved with chicken wire and tree branches. We circled a grassy field that appeared to be a cow pasture, and were finally dumped off at the edge of a clump of trees.
English air bases, we had always heard, were all excellent, permanent stations with hard surfaced runways and comfortable buildings for quarters. Tired as we were, the sight of dark O/D (Olive Drab) pyramidal tents among the trees, and the realization that the cow pasture was our operational field produced no smiles on any faces.
So -- we got to work, to make our area liveable. We all cleared out underbrush, dispersed our tents, dug foxholes, (from the 6 foot deep canyon of Master Sergt George W "King"* May, Tech Sergt Clyde J "Jim" Howell, Staff Sergts Arthur J Crettol, John H Knight and Charles W "Charlie" Snyder to the tiny one man job prepared by 1st Lieut John H "Able Jack" Zabel), wove floor mats from branches and twigs and built clothes racks. We had our first experience with "honey buckets" - black iron buckets fitted with wooden seats and hidden behind roofless canvas shelters which an old man in a dirty brown truck emptied daily. We had a cold water wash daily from a bare pipeline in our grove, or from a small brook which finally dried up in the middle of the month. But otherwise we remained bathless for about 10 days, till we finally began to discover showers at nearby RAF station Holmsley South, and set up a bath run by truck daily to the American Red Cross at Bournemouth, ten miles away. The enlisted men's building was the Marsham Court, a swanky sea side resort hotel on cliffs overlooking a smooth curved beach now lined with barbed wire and steel anti landing obstacles, while the officers were directed to another swank hotel, the Ambassador, about a block from the cliff.
To the chagrin of the pilots we began to receive P-47 aircraft a few days after our arrival: April 16 we had 25 planes of various sub types from C-1 to the new D-22s. It was then decided up at group headquarters to concentrate all the older, O.D. painted aircraft in one squadron. The squadron commanders tossed a coin and Major Shook of the 506th lost, so by April 19 we had nothing but silver D-22s.
During the month the pilots flew 598 hours getting used to their planes and trying to convince themselves that the "Bucket of Bolts" isn't such a bad plane after all. Not getting P-51s was such a let down that veteran P 47 pilots were brought in to lecture on the combat performance of their ship. The toughness and durability of the Thunderbolt was emphasised and figures showing the comparatively greater vulnerability of the liquid cooled P-51 were brought out. But the boys by the end of the month were still unconvinced, particularly our C.O., Major Clay Tice Jr, who flew the P-38 in New Guinea and the P-51B in Florida and considered both of them better performers than the P-47. "The P51B fighter plane is the best damn fighter plane out" he would say.
As he did back at Myrtle Beach, Major Tice stressed air discipline and good formation flying which he enforced by fining pilots so many shillings for each violation at a critique after each flight. When he first assumed command of the squadron at Myrtle Beach in January he had said "When the group is in the air, I want everyone to be able to tell which squadron is the 507th from the excellence of the formation." And such was exactly the case throughout the month. Even to the unprejudiced the 507th squadron airborne was easily recognised - flights in column, elements in tight, regular intervals between flights no one straggling or out of line. No squadron formations in all our group or any other group that flew by looked as well.
The Engineering section did the best and most important job of all during the month. Besides the normal strip down inspections on all the new ships, the crews had to manufacture all their own belly tank and wing tank feedlines, and sway braces for the 1000 pound bomb shackles. First Lieut Robert "Murphy" DeGregorio visited nearby airfields and "policed up" nine sets of sway braces by devious means, and hollered loud enough to get the other required sets 3 or 4 days later.
He and his boys (the "wheels"**) managed to pick up here and there some one inch feedline and one half inch tubing and manufactured the fittings for the wing and the belly tanks. They also "chiselled" a tube bender for the fittings -- which turned out to be the only one in local captivity and started the final installations April 27th. On April 29th, 17 aircraft out of 25 were ready to go making our outfit the first in the Group to be "ready" as far as maintenance was concerned. On the last day of the month 23 aircraft were operational and the other 2 were on detached service.
Rounding out the month, squadron staff officers were going to indoctrination schools, flight leaders were flying some operational missions with other units of the Ninth Air Force, everyone was riding bikes, visiting pubs, comparing English pound notes with high class toilet paper, getting used to censorship, enjoying American cooking after the long session with kippers for breakfast and weakly seasoned other dishes on the transport, and getting aquainted with the species WAAF (Women’s Auxiliary Air Force).
Which brings up the case of a nameless G.I. in the outfit who, as he describes it "like everyone else just had to have a bike. So I went downtown and got myself a second hand job and as is the case with all new things I had to give it a test hop immediately. I went out in the street and started racking it around, split - essing***, riding no handed, and showing off all over the place. I had just set course for home when I spotted a WAAF on a bike pedalling up behind me. So I throttled back to what I thought was a nice lady like cruise so she could catch up. The first thing I knew she was past me and practically out of sight up ahead. So I poured on the coal and started after her. Straight pedalling wasn't enough so I stood up and pumped. After maybe a mile of this I just managed to ease up along side her. And do you know by this time I was so pooped I couldn't even say hello."
* May was the longest serving of the non commissioned engineering offiers and so was the "King" of the maintenance services.
** "Wheels" was Air Corps slang for the important people who "made things go".
*** Split-essing was an aerial manouver, a roll over and dive.
HISTORICAL REPORT 508TH FIGHTER BOMBER SQUADRON
404TH FIGHTER BOMBER GROUP
APO 595,U.S.ARMY
APRIL 1944
Prepared by
WILLIAM F. MILLER,
Capt., Air Corps,
Intelligence Officer
Historical Report
April 1944
1. Organization:
April 26 1944, 1st Lt. Gordon O Finstad, 01553807, O.D. trfd. to 506th Fighter Bomber
Squadron, 404th Fighter Bomber Group, per Par. 1, S.O. 69 Hqs.,404th Ftr. Bomb. Gp.
April 29th 1944, 2nd Lts. Theodore A. Lundeen, 0812839, Joseph L. Wilson,0697079, Luciano
B. Herrera, 0465357, Charles W. Caldwell, 0816716, all pilots assd. and jd. Sq. per Par.
3, S.O. 71, Hqs., 404th Ftr. Bomb. Gp.
2. Strength
April 30th, 1944: 254 Enlisted men and 43 Officers.
3. Date of Arrival and Departure from Stations Occupied in the ETO:
Arrived at Station 414 April 5, 1944 (initial station in ETO)
4. Losses in action: Negative.
5. Awards and Decorations: Negative
The Squadron arrived on April 5, 1944, by train direct from Liverpool, England after a rather tedious journey by troop transport from New York City. Morale of troops was excellent and interest keen, as this was the first overseas assignment for the Squadron.
All personnel became intensely interested in comparing this country and its customs with American customs. To say this comparison was carried into complete detail would be no exaggeration. Scenery, English girls, food and liquor; all were topics of comparison.
Having illusions of grandeur, and dreams of residing in castles, the squadron was rather sadly brought to earth to discover, "G.I." tents and "Honey Buckets", the fashion at Station 414. However, with much Yankee ingenuity, various and sundry devices were immediately constructed to replace the lost comforts of garrison life in the States. Hot water heaters, oil lamps, tables, chairs, even matted rugs were ingeniously constructed from nature's gifts.
Having received orders to bring only the minimum of equipment we expected to find a complete issue of supplies and equipment awaiting: however, this was not the situation, necessitating foraging the countryside to get supplies.
All efforts were pointed during April to make the squadron operational as soon as possible.
