49th Fighter Group: Aces of the Pacific

COMMENTARY

FORGING THE 49th

When Nazi Germany invaded Poland on 1 September 1939, the United States Army Air Corps (USAAC) had 26,000 personnel and fewer than 2000 aircraft. The start of the war in Europe prompted its steady growth, but the fall of France the following summer made national defence a priority virtually overnight. The Army Air Corps was handed what amounted to a blank cheque, and in July 1940 the Department of War created the Army Air Forces as its aviation element, and soon afterwards raised its status to equal that of the Army ground forces.

One of the new formations which sprang up was the 49th Pursuit Group (PG), which came into being at Selfridge Field, Michigan, on 20 November 1940. It comprised the 7th, 8th and 9th Pursuit Squadrons with 130 non-commissioned personnel and nine pilots under the command of Maj Glen Davasher. Ill-health, however, forced the latter to relinquish his post, and he was succeeded by Maj John Egan in February 1941.

Group establishment remained static until May, when the 49th PG was ordered to a new base at Morrison Field in West Palm Beach, Florida, with 19 officers and 280 enlisted men. By then it had yet another new CO in the form of Maj George ‘Snuffy’ McCoy. His squadron COs at this time were Lt Allen Bennett (the 7th), Lt Robert Van Auken (8th) and Capt Victor Pixey (9th). A 75-truck convoy conveyed most of the unit’s equipment south from Michigan to its new home in Florida. Training of both pilots and ground personnel progressed through the summer, but this was very limited due to a paucity of modern equipment. Indeed, the squadron’s flying strength was confined to single examples of the Stearman PT-17 and Ryan PT-13 trainers, three obsolete Seversky P-35 pursuit machines and one Curtis P-40 fighter per unit. Training was inevitably leisurely, and curtailed even further by persistent mechanical problems with the elderly P-35s.

Ex-49th FG COs Col Bob Morrissey and Gen Paul Wurtsmith (then head of V Fighter Command), converse at Tadki in April 1944. Later that year Morrissey was severely injured (he lost a leg) during the invasion of the Philippines when his ship was bombed (Steve Ferguson)

Brig Gen Paul ‘Squeeze’ Wurtsmith was head of V Fighter Command from late 1942 until relieved by Brig Gen Freddie Smith in March 1945. Wurtsmith was a career aviator who had enlisted in the Army in 1928 and earned his wings four years later. Given command of the P-40C-equipped 49th PG just five days after the attack on Pearl Harbor, he led the group into action in the defence of Australia in early 1942. Despite being promoted ‘upstairs’ to Fifth Air Force HQ, Wurtsmith would periodically sneak off in his personal P-38 in order to perform combat sorties with the ‘49ers’. Such flying earned him the unswerving devotion of his pilots. Awarded a second star, and promoted to major general, Wurtsmith was made commander of the Thirteenth Air Force on 1 March 1945. He was subsequently killed in a peacetime flying accident (Steve Ferguson)

Matters changed, however, on 7 December 1941 with the surprise Japanese attack on the US Navy’s Pacific Fleet in Pearl Harbor. There were multiple changes in its wake, with Maj Paul Wurtsmith assuming command of the 49th PG, while the 7th PS was taken over by Lt Robert Morrissey and the 9th PS by Lt Jim Selman – Van Auken remained in command of the 8th PS. Training intensified, and flight hours doubled during December.

OVERSEAS

On 4 January 1942 the 49th embarked on a four-day train journey to San Francisco, where the men were herded into the County Livestock Pavilion to be joined by thousands of others en route to the Pacific. Once the unit had recruited 75 new pilots and over 500 enlisted men, it became the first USAAC fighter group to be posted overseas following America’s entry into the war. On 12 January, the bulk of the 49th PG embarked on the USAT Mariposa, with the remainder sailing aboard the SS Coolidge. On 1 February both vessels arrived in Melbourne, Australia.

It was the first stage of a journey that would take the group to the thick of the fighting in New Guinea and the Philippines. By 1945 it was on the verge of a move to Okinawa for the final assault on the Japanese Home Islands when the atomic bombs were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. In the process, the 49th would also transform itself from being a ‘green’ unit to a battle-hardened fighter group, with a formidable reputation as the top-scoring outfit in the Fifth Air Force. Its list of aces included Dick Bong, who became the USAAF’s top scorer.

The US Army’s first ace of World War 2, Boyd D ‘Buzz’ Wagner claimed five ‘Nate’ fighters in four days while leading the 17th PS during the ill-fated defence of the Philippines in December 1941. Wounded in action, he escaped to Australia in early January 1942 and was temporarily seconded to the recently arrived 49th PG by V Fighter Command the following month. Here, Wagner gave the unit’s novice pilots the benefit of his combat experience. Promoted to lieutenant colonel, Wagner returned to the Pacific in April 1942 when he led P-39s into action for the first time over New Guinea. Claiming a further three victories in his first action with the Bell fighter, Wagner was eventually posted home in the autumn of 1942. This photograph was taken soon after his return to the USA (note the P-47B Thunderbolt in the background). Having survived the fall of the Philippines and the early battles of the New Guinea campaign, Wagner was killed in a flying accident (at the controls of P-40K 42-10271) near Eglin Field, Florida, on 29 November 1942 (Author)

All that lay in the future when, on arrival in Australia, the 49th’s three squadrons were sent to different fields for combat training. The 7th went to Bankstown, in Sydney, the 8th to a Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF) airfield east of Canberra and the 9th to Williamtown, near Newcastle, north of Sydney.

The 49th’s P-40Es had been shipped out with the group (19 aboard the Mariposa, 32 on the Coolidge and seven as deck cargo aboard the SS Monroe), and they had to be assembled and flown to the various bases as quickly as possible, for the men had been told that they would have just two weeks to get ready for combat – a tall order for pilots with so little training on their aircraft. Wurtsmith immediately requested assistance, and was fortunate to get Capt Boyd ‘Buzz’ Wagner, the first Army Air Corps ace from the Philippines, to help establish the training syllabus. Each unit received 25 P-40s, and each aircraft was thoroughly tested. The biggest problem facing the pilots was learning to combat engine torque on take-off, and many ground loops occurred. Indeed, some 30 accidents were recorded in the first two weeks.

INTO ACTION

On 4 March Maj Wurtsmith asked 7th PS CO Lt Morrissey if he had enough combat-qualified pilots to send a detachment to Horn Island – a remote airstrip hundreds of miles away in the far northeast at the tip of Cape York, in Queensland, and only 75 miles south of Japanese-held New Guinea. The pilots had to use maritime maps for navigation, and of the 12 P-40s despatched, only nine arrived at Horn Island. To make matters worse, the flight had been arranged so quickly that no transport had been organised for accompanying groundcrew. Pilots would therefore have to do their own servicing, or depend on what help they could find at the two-mile wide spit of land that was Horn Island, in the Coral Sea.

The Japanese had landed at Lae, on the northeastern coast of New Guinea, and were confident they could capture Port Moresby. On 14 March they sent eight Mitsubishi G4M bombers (given the Allied code name ‘Betty’ in the autumn of 1942), escorted by a dozen A6M2 Zero fighters, to find out if the hasty bolstering of Allied defences in northern Australia would affect their offensive. At 1230 hrs Morrissey was warned about the approaching hostile formation and he immediately scrambled his nine aircraft, which formed up at 10,000 ft and began to orbit over Horn Island. The 7th PS CO ordered his pilots to test their guns, but discovered that only one of his functioned. He immediately returned to the airstrip in order to clear the jams, before rejoining his formation. Later, Morrissey reported what happened next;

‘We had been flying around for about five minutes when I saw eight Japanese bombers at 12,000 ft, 15 miles out to sea and flying back in the direction of New Guinea. To the rear of the tight formation of bombers, a lone fighter, which I presumed to be Japanese, was flying back and forth off the tails of the big aeroplanes. Keeping in mind that fighters accompanied the bombers, I jockeyed our formation to attack the eight aeroplanes. While I was looking around to size up the situation, and just before I attacked, nine Zero fighters came into view also at approximately 12,000 ft, but some 7000 ft below us. I turned to attack the fighters.

‘At that time I had but three two-ship elements in the formation. The Japanese fighters were flying a close V made up of four three-ship Vs. I decided to attack the leading Japanese element and let my second and third elements attack the consecutive Japanese ones. I proceeded to attack with my wingman, Lt A T House. My second element hesitated momentarily because the attack signal was not received clearly, and as I passed the second Japanese element they began shooting at me. Lt House saw what was happening and shot one Zero down, but at this point his guns jammed so he flew directly across the top of another Zero fighter and deliberately dipped his wing into the Jap’s cockpit. The Japanese fighter crashed, but Lt House, despite the loss of approximately three feet of his right wing, made a safe landing.

Four men who served with the 49th from the group’s early days in Australia until they became senior commanders are pictured in Darwin in 1942. They are, from left to right, Paul Wurtsmith, Bob Porter, George Prentice, who became the 475th FGs first CO in May 1943, and Don Hutchinson, who led the 49th FG from November 1942 (Steve Ferguson)

‘I shot one Zero in the first element, but dove out without attacking another because I saw bullets being fired at me from behind. I didn’t see the fighter which I shot go down, but knew he had taken enough of my 0.50-cal bullets to destroy him. Lt House later verified this with the statement that he saw the ship dismantle in mid-air immediately after my pass at him.’

Lt Clarence Johnson was also credited with downing one of the Zeros. Lt Harold Martin went after the bombers alone and fired at all of them before he singled one out and pumped his remaining ammunition into it. A naval report later revealed that a twin-engined bomber had crashed into the sea near where the combat had taken place. The 49th PG had scored for the first time, but not without loss, for Lt Sanford had been forced to ditch his aircraft at sea. With the 7th PS detachment soon reduced to just two aircraft within a matter of days, it was ordered to abandon its post.

At around this time the other units of the 49th PG commenced another long journey which would mark the beginning of the campaign to defend the northern Australian city of Darwin. As the Japanese continued their drive towards Port Moresby, they began to concentrate their attacks on Australia by pounding Darwin, which was still receiving refugees from Java. New enemy units moved into airfields in Timor, and on 3 March Zero fighters destroyed aircraft and attacked port installations. This attack caused great concern in Australia, and resulted in the call for the 49th PG to be moved to the Darwin area as soon as possible. First to depart was an advance party from the 9th PS, which was immediately followed by the air and then ground detachments.

Capt James Selman set out on 8 March on the 2000-mile trip to Darwin with 25 P-40s. Numerous storms and maintenance problems delayed them, and it was not until the end of the month that the 21 surviving aircraft arrived at their destination. But they were soon on the move again, as the unit’s assigned RAAF base was found to be too badly damaged by recent enemy raids to allow it to support further flight operations. The 9th PS duly took up residence at Batchelor Field, some 50 miles south of Darwin.

This publicity shot of Lts Bruce Morehead (right) and Andy Reynolds was taken at an RAAF base near Darwin in May 1942. The P-40E behind them was assigned to the 7th FS’s Capt Bill Hennon, who, just three months prior to this photograph being taken, had emerged from the disastrous defence of Java as the sole American ace. The fighter featured a red spinner, which many Philippines and Java veterans in the 49th FG painted on their aircraft, stars around the nose, a flight leader’s band around the rear fuselage and a large ‘Bunyap’ screaming demon design, which the 7th FS later adopted, on the rudder. This P-40 was eventually wrecked in a collision. Hennon went on to score seven victories before completing his tour, and he later disappeared on a cross-country flight in March 1943 after returning to the US (Steve Ferguson)

The unit’s novice pilots were now joined by some experienced men who had seen combat in the ill-fated defence of the Philippines and Java. Capts ‘Buzz’ Wagner and Walter D Coss were assigned to Headquarters Squadron, while Lts Nathaniel Blanton, Jack H Dale, William J Hennon and Lester J Johnson went to the 7th PS and Lts R B Dockstader, George E Kiser and James B Morehead joined the 8th PS. Finally, the 9th PS was boosted by the arrival of Lts Joseph J Kruzel, Ben S Irvin and Andrew J Reynolds. Those assigned to the 9th were immediately sent to Darwin, while the others went temporarily to Bankstown.

Taken on the same day as the photo above, this shot shows Lt Andy Reynolds posing astride the cockpit of future ace Lt Bob Vaught’s P-40E BOB’S ROBIN (Steve Ferguson)

Java veteran Capt ‘Bitchin’ Ben’ S Irvin, who was 9th FS CO for a short period in Darwin, leans against the wing of his P-40E (41-25164, ‘White 75’) The Rebel, showing its prominent Pegasus fuselage art. Irvin had claimed