[Juha]

Christer, thanks for the Extract from General Orders No. 86, War Department, Washington D.C., 8 November, but the fact that 350th flew from Corsica isn't a key info, bacause many of Allied formations flew from there bacause it was an rather ideally situated for a base for an interdiction campaign against German lines of communications, a look to a map shows that.

Yes, it is also my understanding that 350th flew mostly coastal patrols, IIRC P-39's got only 14 kills in MTO, but April 6th wasn't its only ground attack day, for example, this is from Molony et al The Mediterranean and Middle East Volume V (London 1973) p. 815," ... on the 27th [March 1944] Airacobras from Mediterranean Allied Coastal AF destroyed the Ponte Mussolini just south of Grosseto. Rail traffic which already could reach Grosseto only by a detour, now could not pass south of it."

On the claims on April 6th I have nothing to add, IIRC ANR's I Gruppo Caccia operated more north on that day.

As I have wrote earlier, P-39 divided pilots' oppinion, some liked it some loathed it. Maj. Douglas V N Parsons from 35th FG wrote in Osprey A/c of the Aces 61 "Twelve to One" on p. 38 "... As the Allied ground situation improved, so did our air equipment, for we changed over to P-47s. This gave us added range, and of course potential altitude advantage. We hated to give up our P-39s, but we were beginning to reach out..."

In that Finnish AF raport La-5, La-5F and La-5FN were all La-5s, I think. In some combat reports one may see identification LaGG-5, IIRC, but generally La-5 meant all those versions as AC meant all P-39 versions.

Two sentences just before the earlier quote are "Pilots experiences were that Jak-9 [Yak-9] and La-5 were more or less as fast as MT [Bf 109G-6] but more manouvrable. Jak-9 climbs at least as well as MT, La-5 maybe climbs a little bit slower."

Juha