Escort Fighters

Tail to pilot, fokkers 12 o-clock high, coming down; they were not all little friends, would you know the difference Gnome?

A part “Yes”. I would be astonished if enemy fighters cruised along as top cover. But that said, you’ve made a good point Grounded. I know not very much about the USAAF daylight air battles. I assume escort fighters departed (top cover positions) to engage the enemy when the latter arrived on the scene. This very issue (close cover) caused a lot of friction and severely compromised the Luftwaffe in the BoB.

From Tuskegee Airman Alexander Jefferson’s book “Red Tail Captured, Red Tail Free,”

– Most missions of the 332nd Fighter Group were bomber escort, but some were strafing missions.
– To match groundspeed, the fighters would zigzag back and forth over the bombers. They escorted both B-17s and B-24s: “We much preferred B-24s because the B-17s were slower, and we had to stay with them longer, which meant we used too much of our precious fuel.”
– On a mission to a distant target like Ploesti, there would be a prearranged rendezvous point where one fighter group would hand off to another. On two occasions Jefferson had to land and refuel on the island of Vis off the coast of Yugoslavia when the second fighter group showed up late, leaving him with insufficient fuel to return to base.

He describes Vis as a real boneyard, as many damaged aircraft also landed there. I wonder if any wrecks remain?.

Harald

Tail to pilot, fokkers 12 o-clock high, coming down; they were not all little friends, would you know the difference Gnome?

top-cover weaving

a picture tells a thousand words ~ attribution unknown (arguably 1943)

Escorts

Thanks Jules, I am very surprised there arn’t more of you ex WW 2 air crew people on sites like this one available to discuss important periods of history because our memories are not perfect and as time passes what gets into print is often incorrect.

Grounded,
Speaking to people in my group at reunions, who flew in 1944 and 45 when the P 51s escorted the bombers. I was told that the fighters flew with them all the way to the target and return, including their “weaving”. I don’t know if they were were relieved by other fresher planes. I will find out because I know a Tuskeegee Airman pilot who was there. I have to e-mail him to get a reply.

The Hellcat had a range at 15,000 ft and 400 gallons of fuel of around 1100 miles and the Corsair at cruise and 536 gallons of fuel could go 2100 miles at 5,000 ft (obviously not the operating height of the bombers for either plane) but the RANGE was there in some cases…

I suspect those numbers are for aircraft operating without drop tanks, correct? To be successful in the Pacific, a fighter needed to have decent range. After all, safe landing spots, even emergency ones, would be few and far between. Also, I expect that bomber escort duty, as opposed to just interceptor duty, would have been factored into the design criteria right from the start. Compared to the land-based European fighters, the Lightning, Corsair, and Hellcat all had superior range. Likewise, if I can believe William Green, all the modern Japanese fighters, i.e., those with closed canopies and retractable gear, also had service ranges on the order of 1000 miles.

I hadn’t really thought of the political aspects of the question (Army vs. Navy, etc.), though that certainly would have come into play. And the logistics of supporting another type of aircraft could have been presented as an argument against if one were looking for same. Finally, I suppose the US Navy needed all the Hellcats they could get in the Pacific. It is interesting to speculate, though, how the Hellcat would have performed in the ETO. The Mustang was faster, to be sure, but was the Hellcat more maneuverable, given the influence of the Japanese it was created to oppose? BTW, I did check the Fleet Air Arm Archive website, which confirms that British Hellcats from 800 Squadron downed an Fw-190 and two Bf-109Gs over Norway on May 8, 1944, during an attack on the Tirpitz. One Hellcat was lost to the Luftwaffe and one to AA fire.

For the one year plus that I have been lurking on this forum, I have been struck by how rarely the Hellcat comes up in discussion. The Corsair has a couple of champions, and with this being a UK-based forum, discussions about the ETO naturally predominate, but there has been significantly more discussion about the Brewster Buffalo, of all things, than about the Hellcat! It just seems strange to me, considering the Hellcat’s large numbers and outstanding combat record.

Harald

Hmmm… Regarding the Whirlwind and the lack of ‘crossover’ between tanks, I spoke to Mr Fred Ballam of Westlands a couple of years ago now and this matter was brought up at the time. According to Fred it was’nt put in, simply because it was’nt asked for… Shocking lack of forthought, yes. But as he said there was’nt an awful lot of room to spare and it would have put the cost up and the aircrafts weight… Doh!

Makes you think how ever did we win the War…

Harald, THANK YOU, I was gonna mention this….what happens if Naval fighters like the Hellcat and Corsair enter the escorting fray? The Hellcat had a range at 15,000 ft and 400 gallons of fuel of around 1100 miles and the Corsair at cruise and 536 gallons of fuel could go 2100 miles at 5,000 ft (obviously not the operating height of the bombers for either plane) but the RANGE was there in some cases….but it was a matter of them being allowed to operate in the European theatre by the Army and the Army taking both models of plane on charge with their service, or convincing the Marines/Navy to escort their bombers into Germany, which of course we know did’nt happen. As for thier ‘at altitude’ performance, The Hellcat was capable of mixing it up with German fighters (I seem to recall a post of long ago recalling that Hellcats actually shot down some Messers in one of the attacks up near Norway or somewhere) and P-47’s used to shy away from mock combats with Corsairs on the east coast of the US at medium to higher altitudes because the Corsair could take them, only at VERY high altitudes would the P-47 become the better plane…and since most air combats work their way DOWN from altitude, this played into the Navy fighters strengths…Both planes were introduced in 1943 (the Hellcat being the latest introduced of the Navy fighters in the war) so could have joined the fray after the start of standard production….

Other thoughts?

Mark

You guys still don’t seem to get the point I am trying to make, putting it simply a single fighter single fighter could not escort a bomber all the way to a distant target, the Mustang for instance was quite capable of going the same distance as the bomber but certainly not at the bombers speed, all that weaving would soon eat up all his precious fuel. Jules states that the fighters couldn;t escort going and coming in his theartre of operations, I would think for much the same reason, not enough aircraft to maintain continual cover.
Going back to the start of this thread the question was, in veiled terms, what other aircraft could have done the job? My answer is none, the problems had to be faced as they appeared, by tactics, modifications, etc. Even if a perfect escort could be designed, by the time it would be available the situation would have changed. Sorry to ramble on Moggy but you can’t change history.

Grounded,
Thanks Moggy for your help.
I flew most of my missions from Tunis, N.Africa. The bomb line was between Rome and Naples (BL- is where is where the opposing armies faced each other).When we bombed southern Europe and nothern Italy the fighters couldn’t escort us going and coming. Most of the time we only had one wing of B17s (4 groups) and a few groups of B24s, I believe that we had one group of P47s and one group of P38s. We had a different war then the 8th.
There was a period during the fall and early winter of 1943 when morale was very poor in our theater because we were short of equipment and crews. everything was going to the 8th

With one exception, early Nov 1943 from Tunis we went to Weiner Neustsadt, 30 miles from Vienna, we were airbourne for 13 1/2 hours 1000/900 miles, we were staged to land in Sicily, on our return. We did see our fighters at the target only, we lost 16 planes. the fighters were probably based in N.Sicily.

When the 15th AfF moved to Foggia, Italy there were 6 groups of 17s and
12to 16 groups of B24s. Then the 15th were more on a par with the 8th AF.My group flew to Berlin, shuttle raid to Russia, 10 times to Ploesti. Not long after I finished my tour the P51s arrived and did the escorting all the way to the target and return

Was the Hellcat ever considered for use as long-range fighter escort in Europe? How do you suppose it would have fared?

Harald

Do remember that Jules was operating in the Mediterranean theatre, not NW Europe.

Moggy

What you didn’t say Jules, was that the escorting fighters had to leave you and be replaced with another lot continuously while over hostile territory, at least that is what they did in the mighty eighth, therefore in effect there was no such aircraft available as an efficient escort on it’s own, even when it was the celebrated Mustang. On some raids the escorts could amount to over a thousand fighters some doing two sorties, one out and one return.

Browsing, I discovered this thread, very interesting. Not to get into the technicalities, but as one who was there at the time, the only escorts we had were P38s and P47s, they did well but they didn’t have the range. When they left their escorting duties the German fighters hit us. My missions in a B17 averaged 8 hours each, I finished before the P51s came into our theater in mid 1944, I know that losses to enemy fighters dropped drastically.

Any comments–I monitor the B17 thread.

…We know how Dowding had little support and was dumped…after, not before Autumn,1940;

Its a bit of a myth that Dowding was dumped. Fact was he had his mandatory retirement extended several times by October 1940. I am not in anyway detracting from his role in the design of the system and his fighting of the Battle of Britain. However by the end of the Battle both he and Park were worn out. Dowding was by time in rank the most senior person in the RAF, but he was never going to be CAS. He’d already been passed over for that role some years earlier.

The war was growing more intense, and the role of Fighter Command was moving to the offensive. Dowding was tired, past retirement age and, more importantly, younger and fresher talent needed to be bought up to face the strategic challenges of the new offensive direction. A good military force is one that knows when to retire people and inject fresh blood (the behaviour of Macarthur during the Korean war shows just how essential this is). I realise there is debate about whether Dowding should have been made MRAF as a reward, but the tradition then was that only service chiefs received that rank. He had not been CAS so he didn’t get the promotion. He was however ennobled, which was quite an honour and, at the time, almost unique.

It is essential that promising officers are allowed to blossom – Portal is proof of that – and, unfortunately, the places have to be created for them. Sholto Douglas is another, as was Leigh Mallory. War for the commanders is a very demanding and stressful job. Rotation and retirement for them not only prevents them from serving past their best, when the best is needed but allows the next generation to thrive.

Originally posted by Alertken
but the human causes of why are obscure

Too true, and not just the human causes but also the complex interactions between a wide variety of factors: policy and doctrine; the types of aircraft required to execute that policy (about which the Air Staff frequently disagreed among themselves, let alone with their technical directorates); an industry that was (quite rightly) still focussed on turning a profit; rapid advances in aircraft performance and equipment; manpower and materials issues; the need to order and expand rapidly enough to placate press, public and Parliament without saddling the RAF with obsolete inventory when something better was always just round the corner; the changing international situation – not just Germany, but also the Ethiopian crisis and emergence of Japan; and many other factors.

It’s an incredibly complex picture, and, as you say, just one small change or different decision at an early stage (for example Hooker staying at RAE rather than going to Rolls) might have transformed the eventual outcome.

However as human beings we don’t much like this sort of stuff – it’s too complex, too hard to get a grip on. We prefer, and get, nice simple – and simplistic – explanations involving a single cause and a single effect, or a heroic designer/engineer who reads the tealeaves and single-handedly comes up with something war-winning or even total myths such as Ralph Sorleys’ solo invention-by-brainfart of the 8-gun fighter. The fact that these explanations/beliefs do not survive even momentary contact with the (very substantial) archival record hasn’t stopped them becoming “true”.

As for Portal I’ve never really thought about how historians have judged him. My own impression, having reviewed a lot of the primary material on, for example, the escort fighter issue, the use of fighters for ground attack and tank-busting and his inability to get Harris to do as he was ordered, is that Portal comes across as doctrinaire, unimaginative and altogether something of a lightweight. I’ve no doubt that Freeman – altogether more analytical, open minded and technically savvy – would have been a better choice. Whether it really was his divorce, as he certainly seems to have believed, that stood in his way, I doubt we will ever know.

Irony – Dowding using his creations, Peregrine seen as having the power absent in Merlin – is the point here. The “stats” tell us what happened, but the human causes of why are obscure – what did not occur is not captured. Hence the fun of counter-factual What If:
– Vickers had co-operated in sub-contracting? Wellington was to have been used to introduce metal to Hatfield. But that did not happen, DH was design-empty in 1938, so Freeman was amenable to trying a wooden high-speed unarmed type – no disruption of “real” Warwork;
– Hooker had not joined RR? The line (?Curtiss D-12)/Kestrel/Merlin was never expected to grow to carry Grand Slam high and far: that had to do with him, “not much of an Engineer”, coming along as the “Man who put power in the Merlin”, and Chadwick putting 4 of them on the good wing of the useless Manchester. The funder of his new Chadderton Factory was talking of putting Halifax in there.
This human aspect of history is all really rather frightening – it’s like Mum telling how she nearly didn’t marry Dad. We know how Dowding had little support and was dumped…after, not before Autumn,1940; we know how young Portal has been judged well by historians of WW2 Command. He was a surprise selection, leap-frogging his seniors, Freeman and Harris…who were both unacceptable to the (Queen) King because of their messy divorces – second son Bertie had not been trained for the throne and his wife detested any other woman.

Just how desperate the USAAF was, in 1942, to have long range escorts is demonstrated by the “Escort Fighter” version of the B17 – the XB40. All the extra guns and ammo did was slow it down so far that it couldn’t keep up with the standard B17s. Poor things needed fighter escort themselves. The USAAF also tried it with a B24 – the XB41 – and it was even worse.

But the whole idea of heavy long range escorts had been pretty much shown to be a dud with the Me110 in the Battle of Britain.

Originally posted by XN923
a number of preliminary design studies possibly the result of air ministry specifications (later cancelled perhaps?) from the 30s for dedicated escort fighters. These were for the most part multi-engined and made use of the then-new multi gunned, powered turrets being introduced by the likes of Frazer Nash and Boulton & Paul

These weren’t really escort fighters per se, but an extension of the belief in self defending bombers (albeit one that showed a degree of flawed logic).The intention was that some proportion of the formation would be made up of (effectively) bomber aircraft that carried heavy defensive armament rather than bombs. It was rapidly realised that the problem with this was that on the way back from the target the bombers would be lightly loaded while the specialised heavy armament aircraft would still be carrying gunners and guns and therefore, even if all ammunition had been expended, would actually have inferior performance to the bombers they were supposed to protect.

The Air Min never issued an Op Requirement for such an aircraft and most of these ideas – like the Vickers ‘Battleplane’ – came from the industry.

Just about every major air power toyed with this idea during the 30s. The only (im)practical hardware that came out of such thinking that I can think of was the Bell Airacuda (which, I admit, was not quite the same concept, but similar).

As for the turret fighters, these were largely a product of the dull mind of Sir Edward Ellington, Chief of the Air Staff at a rather critical period (and later described by Freeman in a letter to Trenchard as ‘the worst CAS we ever had’). The RAF had serious reservations about the effectiveness of single seat fighters in successfully attacking bombers, but Ellington seems to have felt them more acutely than most and pushed through the investigation of all sorts of ideas: fighters attacking and firing in formation; fighters with wing mounted guns that could be moved in elevation and traverse in flight; and the turret fighter which was supposed to allow greater tactial flexibility than the fixed gun fighter which was committed (in his mind anyway) to the conventional stern chase attack. It could have been worse – his original concept of the turret fighter had two turrets, one forward and one aft, either with two gunners or just one, scuttling to and fro as the combat developed.

Fortunately Dowding, then Air Member for Supply and Research, showed rather greater faith in conventional fighters, so long as they had speed and firepower. It’s one of those wonderful ironies of history that it would be he who would later get to use them for real.

NiallC