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Re: 14th FG P-38 lost on 15 june 1943
Carlos,
I've examined with a lens the picture from the original negative, I've also scanned it with higher resolution but no number is visible.
In the same picture posted in the 1st FG website (it's a detail of a copy of the very same picture, copy that I've sent to Gian Piero Manca, alias "Figghiuzzo") the number disappear if you click onto it and see it enlarged.
So, I think that the number is likely the result of the way the picture has been copied and scanned.
Therefore if only a two digit number was written on the boom, why italian painters should have cancelled it in such a way like an L or U were cancelled too?
The P-38 landed at Capoterra on 12 june (according to another source, 13 june): non MACR, no losses reports in these days.
So, it's not possible that the date was 5 june. According to italian source, the two P-38 lost that day after a dive bombing of the Cagliari Monserrato airport, one of them was POW, crashed in the sea.
2nd Lt F. Browne was killed/missing on 15 june during a mission over Sicily (his name is in the Tablets of missing in the Sicily-Rome American Cemetery at Nettuno, Italy), so he can not be the pilot who landed at Capoterr.
On 15 june another P-38 pilot was taken POW according to "Adorimini" the history of 82nd FG: Lt. Richard F. Kenney. But this happened during a strafe mission in Sicily.
Or there is a mistake and he was over Sardinia?
Gianandrea
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