Five days after the landings on Mindoro, U.S. fighter planes in the Philippines briskly turned their main attention to knocking out Japanese air power on the far richer target of Luzon. Joining in the fun, as usual, were the “Forty-niners,” men of the Fifth Air Force’s famed 49th Fighter Group, first expeditionary unit of the Army Air Forces to go overseas.
Formed in January 1941 at Selfridge Field, Mich., the Forty-niners went through the usual training in P-40s, were shipped out less than two months after war began. Under command of young, keen-eyed Major Paul B. Wurtsmith (now a brigadier general in charge of the Fifth Fighter Command), about a year later they landed in Melbourne.
Within little more than a month, they drew their first blood. Sent to protect Horn Island, one of the Forty-niners’ three squadrons, the Seventh, went up one day to intercept Jap raiders, downed five without loss to themselves.
Springtime in Darwin. Picking up fugitive flyers from Bataan and Java, including the early-famed Buzz Wagner, the Eighth and Ninth squadrons followed the Seventh northward, reaching Darwin bases in time for the big Japanese raid on April 25. In that first real baptism of fire, the Forty-niners bagged 24 Jap bombers and nine fighters without suffering a single loss. By Aug. 1, six months after arriving in Australia, they had run their score to 60, had lost only three pilots. On Aug. 12 they received a Presidential unit citation, then plunged into the battle for New Guinea.
Until early 1943 the Forty-niners flew nothing but P-40s. Then they reluctantly accepted their first P-38 Lightnings. “The P-38 was strictly a truck,” says one squadron’s records, describing the first reaction of pilots. “Old Darwin men knew they would never see the real scramble again or . . . the close-quarter hairy old rat races above the field.” But after the required 50 hours’ training in P-38s, all the Forty-niners were won over.
Acid Test. The real test-battle-only confirmed their liking. On Jan. 8, a young flyer of the Ninth named Richard Bong scored the fifth kill that made him an ace. Other scores soon piled up to compete with his. Quickest to become an ace was Captain James A. Watkins, who in one week ran his total from one to eleven. But by then Dick Bong had 16.
Working as smoothly as their smooth, new planes, the Forty-niners played an important part in the Battle of the Bismarck Sea. They flew over the Owen Stanley mountains, strafed and dive-bombed on missions of their own, escorted heavy bombers, gave valuable support to ground troops all up the New Guinea coast.
On to Manila. Last September the 49th’s Ninth squadron was the first U.S. fighter outfit to hit the Philippines. In October the Forty-niners arrived on Leyte, to base there. They could boast of having bred most of the Southwest Pacific’s fighter aces, including eleven currently in action. Their biggest continuing source of pride is Major Bong, now a roving gunnery instructor who occasionally roves with his old buddies. On a sweep over Mindoro last week, Dick Bong bagged his second Jap fighter in a week, ran his score to 40.
But the Forty-niners, now bossed by slim, pleasant-mannered Lieut. Colonel George A. Walker, need not look to their aces alone for records. In the Philippine fighting, their toughest yet, they have so far knocked down 139 planes, have lost only four of their pilots. In the entire war, they have shot down 627 Jap planes.
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