P-47D Bubbletops on D-Day itself

[KennyK]

Hello all. I am aware that the bubbletop was entering squadron service just before D-Day and the first planes, of course, went to unit commanders....... but how many were in action on D-Day itself and maybe the first few days afterwards?

Finding stories/history of P-47 units isn't so hard... but tracking down more exact details and pictures isn't so easy!

Thankyou

Kenny

(context: apart from the educational aspect, I have a plan to build a bubbletop in commemmoration of D-Day.... then I realised that i'm short on info and probably short on possible planes!)

 

[YGBSM]

The first P-47D-25-RE models (the 1st 'bubbletop' version) were received in May 1944. The 56th Fighter Group would be a good one to focus on - plenty of aces and history there, plus they were among the first to receive the 'Superbolts', as they called them. The 56th is the group known for keeping its P-47s when the P-51 was being rolled out to most of the groups. Also as an interesting side note, the 56th eventually became the collection of training squadrons at Luke AFB which trained all of the F-16 pilots for the Air Force (they're currently being reorganized as the Air Force transitions to the F-35)... end side note.

The squadron received a trickle of the 25-REs, so as you said, the first went to group and squadron commanders. The first five went to 1) the group commander, Col. Zemke 2) Maj. David Schilling and then squadron C/Os 3) Capt. Don Goodfleisch 4) Maj. Lucian Dade and 5) Maj. Francis 'Gabby' Gabreski.

Here is Col. Zemke's plane (42-264413 / UN-Z), the very first 'bubbletop' received by the 56th, now preserved at the American Air Museum in Britain:

Source: www.airport-data.com

It's hard to say exactly how many were in service on June 6th. Probably not much more than the C/Os and perhaps their wingmen. The 56th FG didn't have enough of them to take advantage of their additional fuel / range until August of '44, if that tells you anything.

They would have arrived as 'unfinished' (i.e. bare aluminum). Since the landings and subsequent basing on the continent was expected, they ended up being painted a variety of camo schemes. Of course the D-day strips would have been applied if nothing else.

Source: Pinterest

I'm not sure on the accuracy of the above. It could be and looks right, I'd just double-check before basing a model on it. But it does give you an idea of how an aluminum finish would look after squadron markings, D-day stripes, etc. were applied.

My advice is to research the C/Os and their aircraft and pick one of those. Gabreski as a well-known ace is a common choice for the P-47, but the others are fine choices as well, especially if you want something a bit different from the norm. In any case, many model kits will use Gabreski, so he can still serve as a guide for the model kit selection.

 

[fubar57]

P-47D 42-28688 56th FG. Some received camouflage after arriving in England

​

 

[YGBSM]

42-28688 seems to be a D-28.... would any of these have been flying on D-Day?

But I do think it is a good representative of the camo scheme (shown in Dec '44)... it still matches pretty closely with Col. Zemke's plane:

Source: American Air Museum in Britain

 

[fubar57]

Col. Schillings aircraft was a -25RE carrying full D-Day stripes

 

[YGBSM]

Agreed - I believe that aircraft was 42-26641:

Source: American Air Museum in Britain

 

[Wurger]

 

[YGBSM]

Some more schemes (note: I did not positively confirm which of these, if any, actually flew on June 6th... but consider these at least 'likely candidates'):

P-47D-26 42-28382 "OLE COCK III" - Capt. Donavon Smith, 61st FS, Boxted, June 1944

With color palette noted!

P-47D-25 42-26628 "Rozzie Geth II / Miss Fire" - Capt. Frederick Christensen, 62nd FS, Boxted, July 1944

Source for all: http://img.wp.scn.ru

 

[fubar57]

PM sent Kenny. A few profiles and photo of a bubbletop and razorback dated June. The odd thing is, they both carry the same codes

 

[KennyK]

Thankyou all for the replies so far! Also to Fubar for the PM

Another question based on the pics so far..... if the upper surfaces don't have D-Day stripes, I have (so far) assumed that the picture was taken from July onwards... Is that accurate?

That stance came from RAF colours reports, not USAAF.

I have a partial list of P-47 production blocks to help narrow things down by SN (I got this ages ago to help with P-47s in summer 1943, I wish i'd kept the entire list now!)

D-25RE 42-26389 to 26773 (Shilling and Zemke have planes from this batch)
D-26RA 28189 to 28438
D-27RE 26774 to 27388

My enthusiasm for the project and plane appears to be well ahead of my knowledge of its deployment!

 

[YGBSM]

As a general rule - if no D-Day stripes at all, (obviously) prior to June '44 as the D-Day stripes were applied just two days before the landings (for fighters) for OpSec. Upper stripes were removed about a month after D-Day to better conceal aircraft parked at Allied airfields in France and were removed completely by the end of '44.

Don't worry about 'not knowing'. I had to look this stuff up this morning to answer your questions. Even the stuff I "know" I like to double-check if possible, as memory can fog over time. Nobody knows everything from memory - with the availability of information on the Internet, it is far more important is to know where to look and to have the desire to get it right. You've already demonstrated the latter by knowing what you need to know and then searching for that information here. Having other knowledgeable people around to double-check is also helpful to keep on the 'straight and narrow', as there is a lot of both depth and breadth when it comes to WW2 topics - just when you think you know something about a topic, another layer of the onion is revealed.

Also, a-historical creations are fine as well so long as they are clearly marked as such.

 

[YGBSM]

Another thing - you've got a good start on the 56th FG which was part of the 8th AF. If you want to consider a squadron / plane from the 9th, try the 365th FG. They also flew P-47s extensively. Beyond D-Day, they are the ones that provided close air support for Patton's 3rd Army and others during the Battle of the Bulge, for instance. Some of the pilots even got embedded with the GIs as forward air controllers.

The American Air Museum in Britain has just about the best air orders of battle (i.e. the structure of various fighting units) available online. Here it is for the 365th.

In case you didn't know - the 8th was focused on strategic bombing and the 9th was tactical. Besides the 56th FG, the 8th moved to P-51s en masse as the primary focus of 8th AF fighters was to escort bombers and the 'Stangs had the "legs" to do that. The 9th AF were the "ground pounders" who largely kept the P-47 through the war due to its ruggedness. A liquid-cooled engine like the P-51 is no fun if you're constantly subjected to low-altitude AAA fire, whereas the big radial of the "Jug" could take hits and often get the pilot home.

 

[MIflyer]

I have a picture that shows the 514th Fighter Squadron about to take off for a mission over Normandy on 6 Jun 1944, from Flight Journal June 2016.. There is at least one bubbletop in natural metal in the line-up. I'll try and attach a PDF of that page.

 

[YGBSM]

Nice find on that picture!

From a quick look, it appears that there are four or five possible 'bubbletops' (circled) out of 21 or 22 visible P-47s. There were natural metal 'razorbacks' at this time as well, so a natural metal finish is not conclusive. I would say that the two circled furthest to the left are definitely 'bubbletops'. The three to the right are questionable.

 

[Wurger]

Undoubtedly the two to the left are the bubbletop ones of the NMF with painted front engine cowlings.

Those to the right also look like the bubbletops.

 

[MIflyer]

In the book "Victory Fighters" I was surprised to see that 65 Squadron RAF was flying Mustang III's on tactical missions right from the gitgo, and was doing so as early as Jan 1944. They did many bombing missions in France, including Normandy, as well as long range fighter sweeps. Although they were focused on ground attacks they also availed themselves of any opportunity to attack enemy aircraft.

On 6 June they did escorts of Halifaxes towing gliders from 2015 to 2215. On 7 June they took off for Normandy carrying bombs but the WX prevented them from doing anything and they brought the bombs back. On 8 June they found and attacked a German convoy of trucks and also shot down two FW-190. So there were Mustangs doing ground attack quite early in the invasion.

 

[YGBSM]

Yes, both Mustangs and Thunderbolts were used extensively for ground attack. I only meant as a general trend that P-51s squadrons tended to take over escort duties and P-47 squadrons tended to do more ground support - but the roles were by no means exclusive to either one. When Allied fighter squadrons were turned loose to begin hunting the Luftwaffe directly, for instance, P-51s often turned to strafing airfields to destroy aircraft on the ground, catch aircraft taking off / landing, or to "stir up" some fighters to scramble to the air. This was the tactic used to catch Me-262s in particular when they became active. They were obviously very difficult to catch in the air, but were quite vulnerable when landing in particular.

 

[KennyK]

I've visited the Home | American Air Museum in Britain site a lot for assorted things over the years I found this picture (D-25RE and full stripes) via your link, YGBSM. My way of navigating the site is still quite basic, though.

That's a great pic of the lineup ready for takeoff!https://ww2aircraft.net/forum/members/ygbsm.72290/

 

[Wurger]

 

[Crimea_River]

Some really good digging here guys.