[Christer Bergström]

As I wrote earlier, in late February 1943, the Airacobra-equipped 350th FG was withdrawn from first-line service and degraded to coastal patrols with the North-West African Air Force. It is not quite correct to state that "it returned to front line action", as you will see below.

In fact, the 350th FG Airacobras never were sent back to regular first-line service. From February 1943, their dominant task would remain coastal patrols in the rear area. In November 1943 it was transferred from North Africa to Cagliari/ Elmas, Sardinia.

Out of a total of 19,750 sorties on Airacobras which pilots of the 350th FG flew during the war, 15,900 were defensive sorties. It simply was judged that the Airacobra was not suited for offensive missions in an environment where there was a risk that superior Luftwaffe fighters could be encountered. (Only when 350th FG was equipped with P-47s later in 1944 did it start to fly regular offensive operations - for the first time since February 1943. I think that is quite revealing. 350th FG's pilots flew 17,270 sorties on the P-47 - of which 90 % were offensive sorties.)

In his excellent "Air War Europa", which Juha quotes, Eric Hammel (incidentally my former publisher) notes for 9 February 1944: "Corsica: 350th FG, which is still flying P-39s bolstered by a few P-38s, is transferred from Sardinia [to Corsica] to undertake coastal defense flights closer to the European mainland". When Juha quoted Hammel's note for 6 April 1944 - "mounts all-out effort against German Army lines of supply and communication...the group mounts 75 sorties in ten missions" - he forgot one key inormation which shows the 350th FG's normal task. The full sentence reads: "Operating from Corsica, the group mounts 75 sorties in ten missions. . ."

When this took place, the 350th FG still was mainly tasked to coastal patrols far from the front lines. The operations on 6 April 1944 was an exception from this. Following the Allied defeat in the third battle of Monte Cassino and in preparation for the next Allied attempt to achieve a breakthrough, the 350th FG was temporarily called to bolster the intense Allied air offensive against German lines of communication.

See this:

Extract from General Orders No. 86, War Department, Washington D.C., 8 November 1944:

". . . citation of the following unit. . . is confirmed. . . in the name of the President of the United States as public evidence of deserved honor and distinction. The citation reads as follows:

The 350th Fighter Group is cited for outstanding performance of duty in action against the enemy in the Mediterranean Theatre of Operations on 6 April 1944. . . . Although assigned exclusively to air defense and reconnaissance because its battle-worn and outmoded aircraft were considered dangerously inferior to enemy fighters, this group . . . while flying 10 missions, comprising 75 sorties, on this day the group, in the face of intense antiaircraft fire, destroyed 1 highway bridge and 2 railroad bridges, 2 air warning installation, 1 barracks building and 2 trucks, and inflicted many casualties on enemy personnel and heavy damage on numerous other military buildings and vehicles. Just as one flight of six P-39 dive bombers was completing an attack on enemy communications in the Grosseto-Pisa area, they were intercepted by 10 or more ME-109's and FW-190's. Gallantly ignoring the odds against them, and despite damage to their own aircraft, the P-39 pilots unhesitatingly turned into the larger hostile formation and attacked with such skill and determination that five enemy fighters were shot down, two were damaged and the remainder driven from the battle area."

I agree that we don't know the real result of the single engagement between Airacobras and Luftwaffe fighters on 6 April 1944. III./JG 77 recorded one loss due to unknown reasons in the front region in Italy, but this could be due to any cause. I don't know if any Fw 190s were lost in Italy that day.

Apart from the 350th FG, which retained its Airacobras for coastal patrols over Northwest Africa or Sardinia/Corsica until later in 1944, when it finally received P-47s, the other Airacobra-equipped unit, the 81st, was relieved of its Airacobras and instead received P-38 Lightnings and returned to first-line service. While the Airacobras of the 350th continued to fly coastal patrols.

I don't know whether the pilots of the 350th FG in general "believed that they could fight with the LW fighters with their P-39s". I'd like to see Juha's source to that. I have heard nothing but the opposite. Like John L. Bradley of US 33rd FG who said that many of the Airacobra pilots were afraid of them and figured they "didn’t have a chance if they were jumped by enemy aircraft without top cover.” ("Fighters over Tunisia", p. 404)

US fighter pilot Edwards Park wrote a book dedicated to the Airacobra, "Nanette", and in it he wrote:

“The Aircobra was lazy and slovenly and given to fits of vicious temper. . . We also called her a flying coffin.”


Due to an account on the "Tuskegee airmen", the Afro-American fighter pilots of 332nd FG "felt betrayed and frustrated" when they initially were equipped with the "obsolete aircraft the Bell P-39 Airacobra" in the MTO. Later they received P-47s instead.


Reading through Hammel's "Air War Europa" (and making use of the excellent index) gives the impression that the Airacobra-equipped 350th FG was the possibly least successful among all US fighter groups in Europe and the MTO regarding air fighting. Although it later received P-47 to replace the outdated Airacobras, its final tally for the war was not impressive: 50 claimed victories against 158 own losses (95 pilots were killed, 22 shot down and becoming POWs, 16 wounded in action, and another 25 pilots were downed on offensive missions but either evaded capture in enemy territory, or bailed out over or crashed in Allied territory).

Regarding the Finnish report which states that the P-39 is about as good as La-5, I would assume that this is regarding the La-5 and not the La-5FN. Soviet 159 IAP operated the La-5 (also called LaG-5) on the Carelian Isthmus in the summer of 1944. Indeed, the Airacobra probably was on par with the La-5 (LaG-5). In "Soviet Combat Aircraft of the Second World War", Gordon and Khazanov conclude:

"Service tests of the La-5 revealed many defects. In combat it was inferior to the Messerschmitt Bf 109." (p. 43)

The pilots of 27 IAP, which brought the La-5 into service at Stalingrad in August 1942, concluded that the La-5 was inferior to the Bf 109 F-4s and especially G-2s "in speed and vertical maneuvrability."

Gordon and Khazanov also write that "owing to [the La-5's] high weight and insufficient control surface balance, it made more demands upon flying technique than the LaGG-3" (which it was supposed to replace).

(The La-5FN, however, was a completely different story.)