306th Bomb Group P51s

A bit more information

I’ve just found my copy of “First over Germany”. The P-51’s serial is quite visible in my copy and is 43-12457. If you google this you’ll find a fair bit of information about it. It was coded 7F-F and belonged to the 370th FG at one time. It seems that it kept the 7F- codes when it joined the 306th BG. As Dan J said above, by 1945 it would have been used as a hack.

Below is a scan of a page taken from Arthur P Bove’s history of the 306th Bomb Group ‘First Over Germany’. The scenes, which unfortunately aren’t the sharpest even in the book seem to show a post-war open day and included in these are images which contain two P51s carrying the Group’s ‘Triangle H’. I presume that these were two of the aircraft use as Buckeye weather scouts flying ahead of the bomber formations as mentioned in Russell A Strong’s unit history of the same title.

Does anyone have any further details of these airframes and the pilots that were qualified to fly them? The aircraft with the steps beside it appears to have a tail-code ending in 2457 with Unit codes DF or OF, the identification number isn’t clear.

I’d suggest that by the time of an Open Day postwar, that the P51 in the photo is nothing more then a squadron hack as it’s a high back B/C which would have been a bit rare by that time as a front line bird, but was around in a lot of places as “War Wearies” that got used by both fighter and bomber groups for basically giving rides and fooling around in 🙂

A bit of trivia about the 306th.

I’ve read (and have no reason to doubt it) that the author’s of the novel 12 O’Clock High used the 306th as a basis ..or the number at least…for the fictional 918th BG.
Their reasoning was…306 X 3 = 918.

Anyone else ever hear that?

The 306th Bomb Group website www.306bg.org is a useful source of information. They have recently added the daily watch logs. You might have to plough through a lot of pages but I’m sure they will include at least the last 3 figures of the serials of any Mustangs that are mentioned

Many thanks for the replies and the interesting further information gentlemen. My interest in the 306th stems from my father having worked on a farm next to Thurleigh in 1943 when he was a lad.

I was wondering if there are any volumes that list P51s by maker’s number and detail their movements in the way that Roger Freeman’s B17 book does, I could start the long search then!

All I can give you is one name. The RNAS Ronaldsway Watch Log records a Mustang, Thunderbolt and Norseman visiting from Thurleigh on a couple of occasions in 1945. Unfortunately it doesn’t list any serials.

2nd May and 1st July – Norseman
30 July – Mustang & Thunderbolt
4 August – Mustang piloted by Colonel Kesling

Earl Kesling was 367th Squadron Operations Officer. The link between the 306th and Ronaldsway started when a 306th B-17 of 367th Sqn crashed in the Isle of Man on 14th April 1945, killing all 11 on board.

I remember the 306th BG holding the postwar open house. According to the book “First over Germany” it was held on August 1st 1945.

They had a band playing in one of the hangars, not Glenn Miller, and they sent trucks to the surrounding villages to pick the folks up. They had flown several other aircraft in for the event. I remember that some nut case opened a parachute in the B-26 Marauder. The various aircraft were opened up for the public to walk through.

The 306th had a collection of aircraft, P-51s, P-47s, UC-78s (Cessna Crane) and an Oxford, sometimes they had an L-4 on strength. I remember a pilot taking up a P-47 and performing some aerobatics to celebrate his completion of his Missions, prior to his return to the US, unfortunately he hit the ground between the parked B-17’s and killed himself. Unfortunately the aircraft, other than the B-17’s, were parked too far away to be able to read their markings.

This was not the only case of them opening the base up, they held dances in the hangars and they sent trucks to the villages to pick up the girls but they did not object to the guys getting on board also.

The Americans were very good to the kids at Xmas they had parties at most of the surrounding bases and many times we were invited in to watch baseball games. They usually had a 45/55gal barrel filled with ice and bottles of Coke!