Flight Journal

BY MID-1935, the Republic Aviation Corporation (formerly the Seversky Aircraft Corporation) designed a single-seat monoplane fighter for the U.S. Army Air Corp called the P-35. It was, without a doubt, the granddaddy to the P-47 and the beginning of

A UNIQUE FACT about the Allied fighters featured in this issue is that though most are American-built, they also flew under a variety of foreign flags during World War II. The Vought F4U Corsair series is one of these. With a world class airframe, un

I HAD ALWAYS WANTED TO BE A FIGHTER PILOT, the “man in charge,” if you will. After I had earned my wings in 1943, I was given the choice of single-engine fighters or bombers. Although multi-engines may have sounded safer, I knew that the only person

IN MID-1943, the Grumman Aircraft Corp. began to deliver the F6F Hellcat—its latest and greatest fighter—to the U.S. Navy. It was fast, maneuverable, heavily armed and armored. It was built “Grumman tough” and soon earned the nickname “Ace Maker.” As

Late into the night of February 27, 1943, Oblt. Heinz Knocke and Lt. Dieter Gerhard of 5./JG 1 sat up discussing how best to combat the B-17 bomber formations that were beginning to increasingly menace the German homeland. Gerhard eventually came up

P-47D UN-V, NAMED “PAT,” from the famed 56th FG, 63rd FS, prepares for another fighter sweep in support of the D-Day invasion. ThesecondmountofCapt. GordonS. Stevens, it survived until early September, when it was lost with Capt. Roy Fling at the con

LEGEND HAS IT that the initial creation of the P-51 Mustang was drawn on a napkin. The fact of the matter was that the British RAF was in desperate need of fighters during the early days of WW II and didn’t care if it had been drawn on tissue paper.

THE ROYAL NAVY operated over 2,000 F4U Corsairs during World War Two. It was flying them from aircraft carriers when the U.S. Navy had declared the aircraft unsuitable for deck operations. At the start of WW II in September 1939, the British Royal Na

IN EARLY DECEMBER OF 1944, most of the pilots in the 78th Fighter Group, especially those with over 25 combat missions under their belts, felt “fat and sassy” flying the reliable and hard-hitting P-47 Thunderbolt. Seasoned pilots realized early on th

Of all the written accounts by the fighter pilots of the RAF during 1941, two stand out, in my opinion. Both were by pilots who flew Spitfire Mk Vs with 610 Squadron, which by summer 1941 was one of the squadrons under Wing Commander Douglas Bader. “

BY THE TIME NEWLY MINTED U.S. fighter pilots entered WW II in late 1941, they faced a Japanese adversary whose pilots had been flying combat since 1937. Not only were these “flying Samurai” pilots old hats, but they also flew a trump card in the form

It was during my initial flight training in early 1942, after performing loops, rolls and Immelmann turns, that I knew I wanted to fly fighters for the Luftwaffe. I was granted my wish in December of 1942 when I was sent to No. 1 Fighter School at We

WHEN HIGHLY COVETED KODACHROME transparency film was present in the tropics, it could suffer the ravages of humidity as is evident in this spotted, yet evocative image of Spitfires in a faraway place. In the absence of formal caption information, som

Saburo Sakai was a samurai, tracing his warrior-caste linage back to sword-swinging feudal forebears who had invaded Korea in the 16th century. Raised on a small farm near the city of Saga, Japan, he learned to scorn money and to endure resultant pov

It’s hard to accurately put the importance of the WW II crew chief, his mechanics and the armorers in perspective. It’s just as difficult to visualize both the complexity of their jobs and the environments in which they had to perform them. First the

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