Identity of F-5 Lightning crashed on take off Vis Island -March/April 44

[Alex Smart]

Hello,
It could not have been the 1st Fighter Group's 27th Squadron's 1Lt. Stanley Lau.
Alex

[kaki3152]

No, the account I found specifically identified the pilot as a Chinese_American flying a recon P-38 coming back from a mission over Austria.

[kaki3152]

Well, after some time spent on the Internet, I am no closer to finding any information.
I have identified some of the Chinese-American fighter pilots of WWII (Frank Fong -359th FG, Stanley Lau - 1st FG, Kai Wau Kong -354th FG) but no recon pilots. I'll keep looking.

[Frank Olynyk]

kaki3152,

Can you give me a reference to the "overseas USAAF Accident listing" you mention? I am looking for overseas accidents involving the 12th, 13th, and 15th Air Forces (and maybe others later).

Frank.

[kaki3152]

Frank,

sure, I'll send you a PM with a link. Love your work.

Carlos

[Boris Ciglic]

Hi kaki,

I stumbled upon this posting with a little bit of delay. In case you didn't find anything in the meantime, what I have on this is that an P-38 landed at newly-prepared landing grounds at Pliško Polje at Vis on 12 April 1944, bringing in the post from Bari. It was also the first Allied aircraft ever to have landed at Vis. As the plane took-off back to Bari, it burst into flame and crashed, falling on Partisans from the 2. platoon/1. brigade/26. Dalmatian division. Pilot and nine Partisans were killed, five Partisans were wounded.

Cheers,
Boris