One of the interesting stories we heard from our old Airwarrior buddy Earl Miller, was that his fighter group, the 350th FG, got hand me down 39s from the 332nd. The 350th flew 39s into August 44 in the MTO before finally getting Jugs. The Red Tails had been in Jugs and then 51s for a bit by then.
Well as you know (especially in the MTO) squadrons were constantly getting shuffled around and reorganized. I mean look at how much the the 99th bounced around in it's first year in combat.
33d Fighter Group (29 May 1943 – 29 June 1943)- P-40's
324th Fighter Group (29 June 1943 – 19 July 1943)- P-40's
33d Fighter Group (19 July – 16 October 1943)- P-40's
79th Fighter Group (16 October 1943 – 1 April 1944)- P-39's
324th Fighter Group (1 April – 6 June 1944)- P-39's
86th Fighter Group (11–30 June 1944)- No planes
332nd Fighter Group (1 July 1944)- P-51's
As the 100th, and 300th squadrons got setup in January of 44 they initially had 39's as well, but they wanted to consolidate the fighter group. So the 100th and 300th started the switch to P-47 in March of 44 and then into P-51s about May of 44 (if I remember correctly). So if you were one of the original pilots with the 99th when it deployed you got to fly many different planes before your tour was up.
- P-40F
- P-40L
- P-39Q
- P-47D
- P-51B/C
- P-51D
That's quite a list of planes to fly in less than two years!
BTW great photo!