Grover C. Hall, Jr. served as Public Relations Officer of the famous 4th Fighter Group, 8th USAAF at Debden, England, in World War Two. There he got to know the storied pilots of the highest-scoring American fighter group in the European Theater of Operations. After the war he became editor-in-chief of the Montgomery [Alabama] Advertiser. The accounts in this chapter are based on his perspectives from his days at Debden.
As has already been recounted in the chapter Blakeslee’s Deal, Colonel Don Blakeslee campaigned long and hard to get the 4th re-equipped with Mustangs after many months of flying combat missions in the P-47 Thunderbolt, a fighter that had not endeared itself to the colonel. He knew that, in the Mustang, his boys would have the means to successfully protect the heavy bombers of the Eighth Air Force all the way to the most distant targets and back. The plane was the best of the best and he was absolutely determined that his group would fly and fight it.
The story goes that way back in 1934, what would become the Debden aerodrome was an Essex farm about fifteen miles southeast of Cambridge, that belonged to a Mr A. C. Kettley. Kettley and his ancestors had farmed the land for more than eighty years, specializing in mainly in sugar beets and wheat, and growing them with great pride and enthusiasm. He fully expected that he would keep on growing them long into the future, as would his descendants.
Then one early evening in May his life changed. A Bristol Bulldog fighter fighter plane roared in low over the Kettley home, its engine coughing and sputtering. Clearly, the pilot had a problem with the machine and needed to land in a hurry. One of Kettley’s wheat fields appeared beneath the wing of the Bulldog and the pilot decided it was as good a place as any to set down. Gliding low over the farmer’s head, the RAF airman gently ploughed a new, deep and unwelcome furrow in the wheat. At the end of its short run, the plane nosed over and buried its prop and spinner in the rich dark soil. “What are you doing in my wheat field?,” barked Kettley. Taking stock of the situation, the pilot noted that he was still alive as the farmer repeated his question with considerable impatience. “Your wheat, huh,” replied the pilot. “If it hadn’t been for your blasted wheat, my bus wouldn’t have overturned!” Then, relaxing a bit, he said to the farmer, “Sir, let’s off to the nearest pub. My treat and pleasure.” Kettley accepted the invitation after first draining the remaining six gallons of petrol from the Bulldog.
The next day Air Ministry officials arrived to investigate the mishap and while there examined the soil in the wheat field. “Wonderful land,” they observed. Shortly thereafter a party of RAF officers arrived and greeted the farmer with “Kettley, we’ve got good news for you—we’ve come to buy your farm for an airdrome site.” “To hell with you!” bellowed Mr Kettley. In the end, though, with the nation and the air force preparing for a virtually inevitable war, A.C. Kettley had no choice and was forced to sell.
With the construction and establishment of the airdrome came a succession of airmen of different stripes. First to arrive were the RAF, followed soon after by a contingent of Free Poles. Grover Hall: “Finally, came a third set of tenants who wore pink pants and forest green tunics to the amazement of the English. The Americans talked louder than the others, stayed gone much longer when they took off for the day’s work across the Channel, and painted bulgy nudes and such-like on their planes. Sometimes the Americans rented rooms in the Kettley domicile so their wives could visit them on weekends. Mrs Kettley, an unworldly little lady, was sometimes perplexed that the appearance of the wives of the officers seemed to change so radically from visit to visit.”
The new Debden base served as a key operational fighter station during the Battle of Britain and the Blitz. The first shot by an RAF fighter in the Battle was supposedly fired by a Hurricane flying from the base. When the Germans switched their attentions from Channel convoys and radar targets to the fighter fields of the Royal Air Force in mid-August 1940, Debden was among the field visited by the enemy bombers on a Saturday morning. Bombs fell on the east/west runway and the repairs left a permanent hump in it. Farmer Kettley later recalled his own memory of the morning raid: “I lost two cows, three calves, seven hogs, 56 head of poultry, including two geese, and my two swans flew away and never came back.”
The desperate pilot shortage in the RAF of 1940 caused it to be receptive to the likes of what became known as the Eagle Squadrons, units of American young men volunteering to fly and fight with their RAF while wearing an “E.S.” flash on their sleeves. Their presence was very well received in the pubs, in buses and taxis, and on the streets of Britain in that period, perhaps making some Britons feel a bit less alone in their country’s stance against the German enemy. The Eagles helped to, in Churchill’s words, “. . . Carry on the struggle, until, in God’s good time, the New World, with all its power and might, steps forth to the rescue and liberation of the Old.” But they were a strange, mixed lot of the good and not so good, in it for the duration.
The Eagles flew Spitfire Vs and Hurricanes and were just getting going by the end of the Battle of Britain, flying convoy patrols mostly and doing a lot of instructing. Of the three operational Eagle Squadrons, No 71 shared the Debden airfield with two other RAF squadrons. The first important fighting for the Eagles came with the Dieppe Raid in August 1942. In the action over the beaches, future names of note with the 4FG, Don Blakeslee, Don Gentile, and Chesley Peterson all got into it with bombers and fighters of the Luftwaffe, Blakeslee and Gentile each downing two. Peterson shot down one German fighter and was then shot down himself, bailing out and landing in the Channel. That night the Eagle pilots celebrated the events of the day at their favourite local, the White Heart in Saffron Walden, near the Debden base. The evening was capped off when the phone rang; it was Peterson announcing his rescue from the icy waters off Dieppe.
Another evening the Eagle pilots would long remember was that of the English premiere of a Hollywood movie about them, Eagle Squadron. They had heard about it and eagerly anticipated seeing it.
As author and film historian James Farmer wrote in Celluloid Wings, “Universal’s Eagle Squadron was the first full-blown, American air-war film to be largely produced after Pearl Harbor. The opening moments get off to an excellent start. The film’s documentary-style foreword, delivered with great solemnity by Quentin Reynolds, begins, ‘This is the story of some our countrymen who did not wait to be stabbed in the back. These boys (of No 71 Eagle Squadron) . . . knew that the security of our country must depend upon our dominating and controlling the air.’ Reynolds goes on to introduce a number of the unit’s real-life pilots, including Battle of Britain veteran Eugene Tobin; Gregory ‘Gus’ Daymond, a former Hollywood makeup man who was then ‘the acknowledged ace’ of the squadron with six victories; C. W. McColpin, twelve victories by war’s end; and the future No 71 Squadron Leader Chesley Peterson, who had seven victories. Chronologically, this opening scene must be set in early September 1941; it was in this month that McColpin first joined No 71 and Tobin, a former MGM studio guide and messenger boy, was killed on September 7, within days of his appearance for the cameras.
“Despite a great deal of excellent expository footage of Mark IIA and VB Spitfires from No 71, No 222, and possibly No 27 squadrons, this Walter Wanger production quickly degenerates into pure B-grade air pulp fiction.
“The members of the Eagle Squadrons invited to the London premiere of the film were “shocked at what they saw. American Eagle Lee Gover later recalled: ‘The film was so far-fetched from actual combat . . . it was embarrassing.’ The Eagles were special guests, sharing the theater with many distinguished Britons that evening. A mass walkout was impossible. But Gover, ‘Mickie’ Lambert, and a number of the other Eagles did in fact sneak down the side aisle and exit through a side door during the second half of the film.
“Bill Geiger, who is seen in the opening moments of the film, recalled: ‘That movie upset everybody, and Squadron Leader Peterson in particular. We had been told that it would be a documentary, like the March of Time of those days. We all felt that we had been double-crossed. Pete was so bitter about it that he never responded to any requests for information or publicity about the Eagles from that day forward.’ At this time, Peterson as commanding officer of the 71st was averaging a call ‘a week’ from correspondents and cameramen wanting to do a spread on the unit for some stateside magazine or newsreel agency. After the Universal film, even Quentin Reynolds, who remained a favorite with many of the Eagles, was refused access to the field by Peterson. Gover explained the Eagles’ position. ‘We were just another RAF squadron trying to do our best. We deserved, and wanted, no special attention—because of our American background—which overshadowed the British- (and Commonwealth) manned squadrons who were doing the same job and with whom we had to fly.’ ”
On September 29th 1942, the three Eagle Squadrons were all assembled at Debden, transferred from the RAF into the U.S. Army Air Force and formed into the new 4th Fighter Group of the Eighth Air Force. In recognition of their prior service flying for the RAF, the former Eagles were entitled to wear their RAF wings on their new American air force tunics as well as the silver wings of USAAF pilots. Lined up on the parade ground under a steady drizzle, they listened as Air Chief Marshal Sir Charles Portal addressed them, “On the occasion of the merging of the Eagle Squadrons with the U.S. Air Corps, I would like to thank them for all they have done during the past two years. The RAF will never forget how the members of the Eagle Squadrons came spontaneously to this country, eager to help us in the critical weeks and months during and after the Battle of Britain.’ ”
When they considered the many differences between life as a fighter pilot in the RAF and in the USAAF in that war, the former Eagles saw considerable improvement in the food and the pay. The new American fighter group at Debden meant an end to Bubble and Squeak for breakfast, and, instead of the monthly pay of an RAF Pilot Officer of $76, they were now paid $276.
For a long time they had been used to, and comfortable flying the Mk V Spitfire, a fast, agile, highly effective British fighter with, it must be said, a relatively short range. They had roughly two years’ experience of air combat operations in the ETO, some familiarity with the capabilities of the German Air Force, and a healthy respect for the demands and dangers of air fighting against their determined, skilled enemy.
Suddenly, they were hearing rumours that the group was soon to be re-equipped with a new, unproven fighter plane, the Republic P-47 Thunderbolt. This possibility met with almost universal disapproval as they dejectedly anticipated having to fly a new plane that was probably no better than some other American fighters like the P-39 and P-40, planes considered inadequate for the demands of combat in European skies.
The rumours were soon confirmed, but the pilots were given a reprieve of sorts. Until the delayed arrival of the Thunderbolts, they would continue to fly their Spitfires. But in March 1943, the day came when the pilots of the 4FG were to take their new planes into combat for the first time. Most of them missed the light, compact feeling of their Spitfires and disliked the great size, bulk and weight of the Thunderbolt. They thought that the glassed canopy and the mirror on the big plane would make it difficult to spot enemy planes, and many replaced the mirrors with Spitfire mirrors. They especially complained about the P-47’s performance: “They won’t climb; they won’t turn tight, they won’t do anything but dive.”
While flying along the French coast on April 15th 1943, Don Blakeslee was in the lead of ten 4FG Thunderbolts. He spotted three Fw 190s at 30,000 feet and dove on them. He focused on one of the Germans and concentrated the fire of his eight .50 calibre guns, following the enemy plane down to 500 feet. The German pilot tried unsuccessfully to bail out and the wreck of the 190 splattered across the back garden of a house in Ostend. That night Blakeslee was congratulated on his victory and on showing how effectively the P-47 could dive in an attack. “It ought to dive,” he said. “It certainly won’t climb.”
As good as the P-47 was, and it was a very good airplane indeed, like the Spitfire and the P-38 Lightning, it simply lacked the range to safely and effectively escort the heavy bombers of the Eighth to many German targets on the European continent.
On October 10th 1943, the Thunderbolts of the 4FG were assigned to protect the B-17 Flying Fortresses of the 390th Bomb Group on a bombing raid to a target at Munster, Germany. When the bombers neared the target area, they were too strung out for the fifty Thunderbolts to give them proper protection. Thirty+ German fighters appeared as the B-17s were turning onto their bomb run. The American fighters ripped into the approaching German planes, but before the battle could develop, Blakeslee, who was again leading the Debden pilots, was forced to order them to return to England as they were at the limit of their fuel range. He also had to make the familiar call to the bombers they were shepherding: “Horseback to Big Friends. Sorry. We’ll have to leave you now.” The bomber crews could only watch apprehensively as their precious fighter cover wheeled around for the haven of England. With accurate knowledge of when the USAAF escort fighters would have to turn back at the limit of their combat radius, the German fighter defenses immediately launched into a savage attack on the B-17s, shooting down ten of them in the next few frantic minutes.
Grover Hall: “A German rocket caught a Fort amidships. It broke in half and one half nosed up and collided with another Fort. A waist gunner was rocketed out of the flaming, splintered bomber in a grotesque swan dive four miles above Germany. His chest was shot away. In a short time some fifty aircraft, American and German alike, were burning and crashing to earth. But the majestic Forts—never once in the whole war were they turned back from a target—ground forward on their bomb runs. Still the Germans swarmed in with tempestuous acrobatics. The interiors of the bombers were splattered with blood whose clots froze in the icy blasts screaming through cannon and rocket rents.
“One of the first bombers knocked out of the sky was piloted by Lt John G. Winant, Jr., son of the U.S. ambassador to the Court of St. James.
“Another thirty-six fighters were sighted dead ahead, coming in for a bare-knuckle head-on attack. Bomber ammunition was all but exhausted, the floors were ankle deep in bullet hulls and wounded gunners bled in them, some dying of their wounds and others dying because they were too weak to connect themselves with oxygen.
“White vapor trails appeared to the west, but this time it wasn’t enemy fighters. ‘I felt like yelling and praying at the same time,’ said a Fort pilot. It was a fresh group of Thunderbolts coming in as part of the relay escort. The German fighters disappeared.
“True, ten of the Forts had been able to destroy sixty German fighters, an amazing performance and far above the average. But eight of the ten Forts in this one box had been shot down—eighty men lost. Had the 4th’s Thunderbolts not been forced to turn back for lack of fuel, they could have protected the bombers from this murderous attack. But the Germans had craftily waited for the interim during which the 4th turned back and the next escort relay was on the way. The Germans capitalized [on] this fighter weakness and there was talk that the United States would have to abandon daylight bombing the same as Germany and England had.”
December 1943. The 354th Fighter Group, the pioneering group of the Ninth Air Force, arrived in England. Hall: “They were a great bunch of pilots, as they afterwards proved, but they needed someone to lead them on their first few missions to show them around. Blakeslee was the natural choice. He went over to the 354th base and led the group on several missions. But each night he flew back to Debden, pearl of the ETO, explaining that he couldn’t bear the 354th’s primitive Nissen hut station. But probably Blakeslee derived a malicious pleasure in seeing his pilots crowd about his borrowed Mustang, mouths watering, agog and enraptured with his enthusiastic account of the Mustang’s capabilities. ‘It’s the ship,’ Blakeslee said.
“Bended knee is not a military posture, but a little later Blakeslee was virtually genuflecting as he implored Major General Kepner, VIII Fighter Command Chief, to provide the 4th with Mustangs.”
The 4th Fighter Group of World War Two was the highest-scoring American fighter organization in the ETO, with more than 1,000 enemy aircraft destroyed.