I looking into Philippines campain and looking for help on info about US Air Power.
Did Corsair had a primery fighter roll? How about P-51 or P-47? Any pictures of and input with will help.
Thanks,
Gumiflex
What time frame are you looking at? Late in the war there was Corsair operations in and around the Philippines and I believe that there were some Mustang units as well after about 1943. It seems like I read somewhere that there were some T-bolt ops as well. I’m not sure what units were involved or what marks of aircraft were employed.
Yeah, It would have to be late in the war (after the Leyte invasion in October of 1944, at least) for those models of A/C.
I have a list of what A/C were on hand in the P.I. as of Dec. 7, 1941, if you’re interested. But they were not the models you asked about.
During the 1944-45 Campaign to liberate the Phillipine Islands, most every type of US aircraft in service then was used in the campaign. AAF fighters were primarily the P-47 and P-38 while the the USN and USMC fighters were mainly the F6F, F4U, and FM-1 (F4F). For attack and bomber aircraft, A-20s, B-25s, and B-24s were used by the AAF, while USN/USMC squadrons used SBDs, SB2Cs, and TBMs. This is just off the top of my head of combt aircraft I am sure were there.
What info in particular (besides photos) are you looking for?
Interesting side bar:
At least one PBY Catalina was used to dive bomb Japanese shipping during the original invasion. I know it as fact because my friend, Art flew it. He scampered out of his Royal Air Force Aerodrome in bare feet to keep from being captured and was promptly ‘absorbed’ by the United States Navy down the road. There, he and crewmen rigged a PBY with racks for dive bombing. He bombed the Japanese continously until he was finally shot down. The Japanese didn’t like him very much at all after that especially! Yes… captured, tortured and sent along with everybody else on the Bataan Death March where he was tortured & beaten some more. He got T.B. and Malaria, recovered and eventually was liberated. Some people are very hard to kill. Art was one cool cat too. A musician and very talented artist that I got to know when my Dad hired him to work in his advertising agency in the mid 1980s. Art knew how fight and live as well!
Two Fighter Groups, 35th and 348th, flew P-51s during the 1945 PI campaign. The 71st TRG flew P-51/F-6s there and then also.
Get a copy of Dana Bell’s “Air Force Colors”, Vol. 3, Pacific and Zone of the Interior: from Squadron. It has details on all the USAAF groups and squadrons with their markings.