P-51 escort operations in the PTO prior to the capture of Iwo Jima and Okinawa?

[BarnOwlLover]

This is about being escorts for B-29s prior to the Allied capture of Iwo Jima and later Okinawa from Japan. I did hear in a video about the XP-82 Twin Mustang restoration that Tom Reilly did say that P-51s did fly briefly from Saipan in the Marianas Islands and from the Philippine Islands to escort B-29s--and barely having enough fuel to do so, which did result in quite a few ditchings at sea. Is there any truth to this, or did the USAAF have to wait until Iwo fell to get P-51s to (at least reliably) escort B-29s to Japan (ironically what the F-82 was designed to do originally)?

 

[EwenS]

The distance from Iwo Jima to targets on central Honshu (Tokyo - Kobe) is in the order of 750 miles. Saipan to Iwo Jima is 723 miles & Tinian to Iwo Jima is 731 miles. So there is no way a P-51 could have flown a round trip all the way from the from the Marianas to Tokyo on a B-29 escort mission. That is a round trip of about 3,000 miles.

I think several stories are being conflated here.

P-51D on Iwo Jima
There were 3 P-51D and 1 P-47N FG deployed to Iwo Jima, ostensibly for B-29 escort. In actual fact most of the missions they flew were fighter sweeps and not B-29 escort. One reason for this was that the B-29 switched to night raids for many missions from March 1945.

15th & 21 FG ground echelons left Hawaii at the end of Jan 1945 to travel direct to Iwo Jima, arriving about 3 weeks later. They were not able to begin going ashore until D+6 (25th Feb 1945)

Meanwhile their aircraft and pilots were loaded aboard the CVE Sitkoh Bay and Hollandia respectively and transported to Guam. There they were unloaded onto lighters and taken ashore. 15th FG then flew to Saipan on 14 Feb while the 21st flew to Tinian a week later. AIUI it they flew some CAP sorties out of these bases so may well have provided escort to B-29s returning home. But there were no organised B-29 escort missions by these units from the Marianas that I've ever come across.

On 6 March Airfield No 1 on Iwo Jima was declared ready for operations and the 47th FS 15th FG flew up from Saipan that day, being joined by the other 2 squadrons in the Group the next day. Operations began on 8 March with the Group flying CAP & ground attack missions in support of the Marines who were still engaged in clearing the island. Then they moved on to strike targets on the Bonin islands further up the chain from 11 March where the Japanese had airfields, radar and listening stations to warn of, and intercept, B-29 raids coming up from the Marianas.

On 22 March 1945 72nd FS 21st FG flew from Tinian to Airfield No 2 on Iwo Jima being joined by the other 2 squadrons two days later. Again they began their operations by flying CAP and strikes on the Bonin islands to the north. First operations were 28th March 1945.

At this time life on Iwo was hard. Living in tents and subject to night attacks by bands of marauding Japanese troops that still had to be eliminated. The 21st FG suffered 14 killed and 50 wounded in one such attack on the 26th March.

Both Groups flew a long range practice mission on 30 March, but it was south to Saipan & back. Less than half completed it successfully, some returning early and others landing on Saipan for repairs. The first VLR mission to Japan, a B-29 escort mission, took place on 7th April when 108 P-51D took off from Iwo to escort 107 B-29 from the 73rd BW to the Nakajima aircraft factories on the outskirts of Tokyo.

The third P-51 Group on Iwo was the 506th FG. Its aircraft were loaded on the CVE Kalinin Bay in California and left on 7th March routing via PH to arrive at Guam on the 17th. There its aircraft were unloaded and flown up to Tiniian. The ground element went direct to Iwo arriving on 25th April. Delayed by bad weather the 506th flew up from Tinian to Iwo Airfield No 3 on 11th May. Operations began on 18th May again with strikes on the Bonins before missions to Japan began.

The final fighter group on Iwo Jima was the P-47N equipped 414th FG which arrived from Guam in late July, after having carried out some strikes on Japanese targets in the Truk Islands on 13th & 22nd July.

There was one particularly disasterous mission. VLR Mission No 15 on 1 June to escort B-29s to Osaka. It was ordered to take place against the advice of the weather officer and ran into a very bad weather front about half way to Japan. Most of the aircraft were forced to turn back. 23 P-51s were lost to weather and 1 to enemy action that day from 148 despatched.

Bad weather was a problem for operations out of Iwo Jima in summer 1945. Typhoon season runs from May to Oct in that area of the world. TF37/38 suffered from it during operations off Japan in July / Aug.



Other Pacific P-51D units

35th FG - Converted from the P-47D to the P-51D in March 1945 while based in the Philippines. While there it was engaged in, amongst other things, escort of FEAF A-20, B-25, B-24 & A-26 aircraft to places as far afield as Formosa and the Asiatic mainland. It moved from Philippines to Ie Shima, Okinawa 28 June 1945 and commenced operations over Kyushu before the surrender.
348th FG - Converted from the P-47D to the P-51D in Jan 1945 while based in the Philippines. OPerations as per the 35th. It moved from Philippines to Ie Shima, Okinawa 9 July 1945 and commenced operations over Kyushu before the surrender.
3rd Air Commando Group - It moved to the Philippines in Dec 1944, and its units included 2 P-51D squadrons. Again its operations were similar to the above two FG. It moved to Okinawa in early Aug 1945.

Although B-29 units assigned to the 8th AF started arriving on Okinawa in early August 1945, none flew any operations before the surrender.

Pacific VLR operations were covered in this book.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Range-Mustang-Units-Pacific-Aviation/dp/1846030420/ref=sr_1_5?crid=3CF0ZLZKXYEBD&keywords=very+long+range+P-51+mustang+units+of+the+pacific+war&qid=1706529257&sprefix=very+long+range+p-51+mustang+units+of+the+pacific+war%2Caps%2C75&sr=8-5

 

[BarnOwlLover]

I thought that the reports of P-51s (or anything else) flying as far as the B-29s did didn't sound right. Only day fighter in the US inventory during the World War II period with that range was the XP-82/P-82B Twin Mustang, which didn't even get a production example delivered until at least a month after VJ Day. And it was designed to fly such distances alongside the B-29s, but P-51s, P-47Ns and P-38s flying from closer locations (such as Iwo Jima and Okinawa) basically took the F-82's place before it even entered service or the first prototype actually successfully flew.