Kills for cannon-armed A-36

[keith A]

Does anyone know what claims were made by these versions of the P51/Mustang? I know they were flown by pilots in N Africa, ETO and in Burma.

regards

Keith

[Graham Boak]

The A-36 was a dive-bomber without cannon, and as far as I know had no kills to its name. The cannon-armed version of the Mustang was called the P-51 - that's correct, without any suffix. In RAF hands it was the Mustang Mk.IA, and served as a fighter-recce aircraft.

I don't think it did serve in Burma, that was the P-51A. Most if not all of the P-51s in the USAAF were converted to fighter-recce aircraft as the F-6A and served in North Africa and Italy.

[Frank Olynyk]

The A-36 served with the 528th and 529th FS in Burma, claiming 2/3/9 between Dec 1943 and March 1944.

It served in Italy from June 1943 to April 1944, claiming 66/11/22, not all currently recognized by the USAF, but all are in squadron records and combat reports. The units were the 27th FBG (522, 523, 524 FS), and the 86th FBG (525, 526, 527 FS). Both groups started out as Light Bomber Groups/Squadrons (with different squadron numbers) but were redesignated as Fighter Groups or Fighter Bomber Groups while in the Med. There was one ace with the 522nd FS, Mike Russo, while another ace Don Cummings claimed his first victory with the 523rd.

Enjoy!

Frank.

[Pilot]

Well... I need to find again my resources but I have read diary of one airman who served in Africa and he stated that in first months they perform ground attack as well escort missions and he noted air combats with enemy. No specific info about air kills.

[bearoutwest]

http://www.86fighterbombergroup.com/War%20diary.htm

The war diaries of the 86FBG whose squadrons operated the A-36 as well as later P-47s is available on-line (see link above).

The data is in raw form - i.e. as filed by respective field officers - but gives descriptions of day-to-day operations. It also provides more mundane information as airfield movement, medical cases (tooth-extractions, VD cases, etc), etc. The few pages that I've looked over don't seem to be quite specific as Pilot X claimed 2 Bf 109's on day Y, etc...but more along the lines of fighter-bomber mission/6 aircraft/description of e/a encountered, etc.

Happy factophiling,
...geoff