Winkton Aircraft

The pictures above were provided courtesy of Andrew F Wilson and Hal Shook. The photo of a flight of P47s about to take off is believed to have been photographed at Winkton. The bubble canopy P47 is reproduced from a photocopy of the 404th official history "Leap Off". It is a photo of the first bubble canopy P47-D 25 received by the squadron. The aircraft, named "Short Squirt", was flown by Colonel McColpin, the Group's commanding officer. The third P47 named "Rae" is that flown by Major Hal Shook, C.O. of th 506th squadron.

Whilst based on the Europe Mainland, Sar Pete was later flown by Fred Varn, renamed Fightin' Gator and has a very special claim to fame. As described elsewhere it completed 200 combat missions.

a 506th bird at Winkton, called Old Hickory does anyone know the pilot or crew chief?

When the Group received its P47s they were not all the same version . Some were older C1 models whilst the others were a variety of D models. Two thirds were new silver P47D-22 aircraft. All the 404th's initial issue of P-47s were Razorback models with the faired in canopy. On Colonel McColpin's orders all the older aircraft, painted in camouflage colours, were concentrated in one squadron - the 506th. These aircraft were easy to identify as all of them had olive green upper surfaces and medium grey undersurfaces - the older P47Cs were described somewhat scornfully as war weary. In common with other camouflaged Thunderbolts in Europe, they had a white front to the cowling, and white stripes on the fin, rudder and tail plane, to help distinguish them from German FW190s. The squadron code letter 4K was painted in white (on green aircraft) on the side of the aircraft ahead of the "Stars and Bars" of the USAAF national markings, with an individual aircraft letter, also in white on the other side of the national insignia. A yellow (usually) six digit serial number was painted onto the fin and rudder of the Thunderbolt, and the national insignia was repeated above the port wing and below the starboard wing and sometimes above and below one or both wings. Later a few silver Razorbacks arrived as replacements before the first bubble top P47s arrived in June 1944 (the bubbletop P47 D25s's had the fuselage fairing removed and a new canopy with all round vision provided instead).

The 507th and 508th had P47D-22 models, in natural silver, with black cowlings and tail stripes which matched the white cowlings and stripes of the 506th's ships and were there for the same purpose - to distinguish them from FW190s. The top decking of their fuselages forward of the cockpit and in some cases the cockpit frames too were painted black or more usually matte olive drab to help prevent the pilot being dazzled by reflections from the polished metal. Squadron markings and airframe serials were painted in black, the 507th used Y8, radio call sign Neptune and the 508th 7J call sign Robert. Although Colonel McColpin flew in at least one other aircraft (4K*J serial 225720) his preferred aircraft was initially a 507 squadron aircraft, P47 D-22 Y8*A 225888, replaced by later by P47 D-25 226414 which was distinguished by red chequerboard markings on the cowling and named "Short Squirt". This first "bubble top" P47 was joined by at least one other in mid June when Hal Shook, C.O. of the 506th squadron, also received a new P47 D-25 to replace his camouflaged P47 D-21 4K*R 225569called "Rae" with the name painted in white with grey and white highlightson both sides of the fuselage below the cockpit.. Hal's new aircraft was silver 226465, had D Day stripes and like his previous aircraft was also called Rae, the name in this case was less ornate in style but boldly coloured with yellow orange letters against a blue panel with speed effects on it.

From the 507th squadron, James Mullins' P47 "Snorting Bull" a P47D-22 Y8*D serial 225852 (photos courtesy Steve Mullins)

Jack Tueller's Rosanne (7J*X 225873) on a visit to see his Brother at Bassingbourne

A later picture of Rosanne, (probably taken in France) showing the mission record.

Jack Tueller and his crew chief S/Sgt Helms (photo courtesy Stephen Tueller)

All three squadrons flew in four Flights ; White, Blue, Red and Yellow flights and in the first days of operations, spare and relay aircraft flew as Purple flight, a custom which seems to have disappeared by the end of May 1944 when such aircraft were just referred to as spares or shared the 404th command radio call sign of Proverb. The 506th's radio call during their time at Winkton was Tuba, so the flight commander of Blue flight would have the radio call Tuba Blue One. If Major McColpin led the group from the lead flight leader position of the 506th his call sign would be Proverb White One, but the rest of White flight would still use Tuba White Two, Three and Four as call signs. After the Purple flight designator disappeared, additional aircraft deployed as relays would use Proverb One, Proverb Two etc..

Over the night of 4th/5th of June the aircraft were painted in their D Day recognition stripes, wide 20" stripes of white and black above and below the wings and 18" stripes around the rear fuselage. However unlike some other P47 units, especially those of the 8th Air Force, there seems to have been only minor and muted personalisation of the 404th aircraft, usually restricted to a name written in large letters on the fuselage side below the cockpit. Examples were Y8*K (Birdie), 7J*E (My Mozelle), 4K*J The Blonde Angel, this latter however was also decorated with a girl's head with streaming blonde hair. Major Tice's machine was named Elsie, Major (later Lt Colonel) Johnson's was "Nellie B" and Lt Russell (Freddy) Fredenhall's was embellished with his wife's name, Joan painted in big letters on the side of his ship. On the cowling he had a new insignia designed by her: the words "Freddy-Hopper", with a happy grasshopper firing a machine-gun. By late June the hastily applied D day stripes were fading fast, and whilst undersurfaces retained the full set of stripes, those on the upper wing surfaces and fuselage top (or sometimes just the white stripes) were scraped off or overpainted with aluminium, olive drab or neutral grey paint.

During the 404th operations from Winkton the principle underwing and underbelly armaments used were 500 lb general purpose bombs.They were designed to destroy by blast and vacuum pressure if they exploded above ground, and by earth shock if they exploded below the surface.

Some of the bombs had light casings and 80% of their weight was explosive, whilst others had very different weight to explosive ratios. Armour piercing bombs had only 5 to 15% of their weight as explosive, whilst semi armour piercing bombs had about 50% of their weight as explosive.

Fragmentation weapons were available in 100 lb and 500 lb clusters, as were incendiary cluster bombs. Both 128 and 260 lb fragmentation weapon were also widely used by P47s in Europe. In Europe the P47 carried the 260lb frag bombs on the belly position.

On these pages I have attempted to capture the details of each P47 airframe flown by the 404th fighter group whilst at Winkton, within what period it was used, which squadron operated it and which pilot flew it, whether it was camouflaged or not, and other general information. Listed below are some caveats. Elswhere is a page on aircraft names and artwork.

Note 1. No records for April, 404th left Winkton on 4th of July, last return mission on 31st June.

Note 2. The majority of "other pilots" may have used the aircraft only once or twice. They tended to be either the senior officers/pilots whose own aircraft was damaged or required servicing, or the newest pilots at the bottom of the pecking order. Prior to D Day the number of pilots and missions was less, and the likelihood of being able to use the same aircraft on a regular basis was quite practical for the group, squadron, flight and element leaders. As pilot numbers and mission numbers per day increased, the inevitable numbers game made maintaining any pilot aircraft link more difficult and only the senior group and squadron officers were able to exclusively exercise that privilege throughout mid and late June.

Note 3. Note 2 was true for all three squadrons, however the 506th had the greatest turnover in airframes due to its initial issue of more elderly aircraft types requiring more TLC and eventual withdrawal and replacement. The small number of P47C's issued in April were gone before the squadron went operational on 1 May 1944.

Note 4 These listings are not comprehensive. The microfilm records for early May and late June are of poorer quality and many are illegible, as indeed are some of the others. In particular the 507th records are very bad, the ops clerk's typewriter should never have seen active service. Never the less I believe that the listings below are pretty accurate - John Levesley.