This is the story of two obscure P-51 type
aircraft, among the hundreds of colorful fighters of the old 8th Air Force
of World War II. Both aircraft scored victories over the Luftwaffe, one
was part of the 8th Air Force’s historic first bombing raid on Berlin, one
flew a shuttle mission to Russia, and one was flown by an eight victory
ace.
     The author was a ground crew member on both of
these machines, and for many years thought he knew the correct sequence of
events that befell the two P-51s. Almost 50 years later, however, with new
information and re-analysis of the memory bank and available photos, he
discovered he had been wrong on many aspects of the story. Hopefully the
following is the correct story of these two obscure P-51s.
     When the 357th Fighter Group formed at Hamilton
Field, California, late in 1942, and got its first airplanes early in
1943, this writer was assigned as Assistant Crew Chief,  with SSgt.
Ray Morrison as crew chief. Crew Chief slots were usually given to the
"older" men in their 20s, while the kids, not yet 20, were made
Assistant crew chiefs. Morrison and I worked together as a team from
Hamilton Field days, until the end of the war, first on P-39s, then on
P.51s. Only a handful of the maintenance men were old line army NCOs, the
rest of us were fresh out of Air Force mechanics school, the same being
true among the newly arriving pilots.
     Following is the story of the first two P-51s
assigned to us upon our arrival at 8th Air Force station F-373, near the
town of Leiston, in the eastern bulge of England, as memory and a few
photos recalled it. These first two P-51s were B or C models (essentially
the same thing). Although the author took several photos of this aircraft,
none showed the tail . . . . .