Most certainly not. There were four YP-80s in the European theater, two in the UK and two in Italy, none of which got anywhere near combat. The F7F and F8F's were in squadron service, embarked and enroute for service in the invasion of Japan. The P-80 didn't come close to seeing service in WWII.
If you had read my post, you would have understood what I was trying to say. Since the P-80s were in Italy and the UK, then it is LOGICAL to presume (since I can't use the A-word that means to make an educated guess) that they were undergoing operational testing, which is the point I was trying to make. And HAD the war gone on for another few months, there was a distinct possibility that they could have seen combat. Who are we to know what those YP-80s could have run into in July of 1945 if things had been different? Chances are they would have been moved to front line base had they performed well in the rear-area operational testing. The US was in a big hurry to get a jet operational, especially since we were way behind the curve compared to the Meteor and 262. Since the war was winding down, there was certainly good reason to see what these aircraft could do under actual combat conditions.
Don't presume to know what the powers that be were thinking. Stating that the P-80 was nowhere close to seeing service contradicts the fact that the aircraft were there in the first place. If they were nowhere near ready, the effort to get them to the ETO would never have been made.
