Airacobras in Tunisia

[Christer Bergström]

Originally, this was part of my latest posting to the “Tunisia thread”, but when I tried to post it, I got the message that it was too long, so I make a separate thread of this:

In the final chapter in “Fighters over Tunisia” (by Shores, Ring & Hess), “Conclusions”, there are some quite interesting pilot comments on the various fighter planes used. With earlier discussions on the Airacobra in mind, it is interesting to note that there are several pilot remarks on the Airacobra, and none of them is kind. In fact, no fighter type is torn apart to such an extent by the pilots interviewed in “Fighters over Tunisia” as the Airacobra.

Jerry Collingsworth, who flew as a Lieutenant with US 31st FG in Tunisia, is quoted saying:

“The P-39 [Airacobra] was a miserable fighter for Tunisia; we used to have to escort them because the Me 109 and Fw 190 outperformed them in every conceivable way; dive, climb, manoeuvre, speed - you name it!” (p. 416)

Wg.Cdr. M. G. F. Pedley, who served as a Wing Leader in 323 Wing in Tunisia, is quoted on the same subject:

“P-39 Airacobra . . . Its rate of climb was poor, armament inefficient and engine unreliable.” (p. 424)

John L. Bradley of US 33rd FG is quoted to say this on the Airacobra:

“I flew a couple of escorts for P-39s during my tour. Many of the pilots on these aircraft were afraid of them and figured they didn’t have a chance if they were jumped by enemy aircraft without top cover.” (p. 404)

There is not one positive word on the Airacobra among these harsh condemnations. Hardly suprising, since by looking up the two Airacobra units operating in Tunisia (81 FG and 350 FG) in the index of “Fighters over Tunisia”, one gets the impression of a fighter plane which was badly mauled by Luftwaffe fighters without any chance to pay back. In late February 1943 350 FG was withdrawn from first-line service and degraded to coastal patrols with the North-West African Air Force. A little later, the other Airacobra unit, 81 FG, was badly beaten up by II./JG 77.

On 13 March 1943, Bf 109s of II./JG 77 - possibly reinforced by some Bf 109s from III./JG 77 - attacked 12 Airacobras of 81 FG, provided with top cover by Spitfires of 307 and 308 Sqns. In the ensuing combat, seven of the twelve Airacobras were shot down without any loss to the Germans. The shot down Airacobras were piloted by Lt. Murray, Lt. Turkington, Lt. Smith, Lt. Leech, Lt. McCreight, Lt. Lewis, and Lt. Lyons. The Eastern Front veteran Ernst- Wilhelm Reinert scored five victories against Airacobras (at 1744, 1748, 1756, 1756 again, and 1800 hours)

(Earlier that day, II./JG 77 had clashed with 34 P-40 Warhawks of US 57 FG and shot down four of these against one own loss. II./JG 77 claimed to have shot down five Warhawks, including two by Ernst-Wilhelm Reinert; thus, the Eastern Front veteran Reinert scored seven victories against US fighters on 13 March 1943, increasing his total victory tally to 135.)

All of this, including Reinert’s feat, is a perfect illustration of the Luftwaffe Eastern Front veterans repeating what they previously had accomplished on the Eastern Front against the same kind of fighters.

To compare with the Eastern Front, 216 SAD, equipped with Airacobras and Warhawks, sustained five Airacobras and a Warhawk shot down in a similar outburst of air fighting on 15 April 1943.

However, to be fair, it should be noted that only a few days before II./JG 77’s massacre on US-piloted Airacobras, other Airacobras flown by Soviet pilots of 19 GIAP managed to shoot down three of III./JG 5’s Bf 109s in a single engagement (against only one own Airacobra lost). Lt. Jakob Norz’s Bf 109 F-4 (WNr 13108), Lt. Gerd Grosse-Brauckmann’s WNr 10183, and Fw. Ernst Schulze’s WNr 10122 were all reported destroyed as a result of that combat. Without drawing any far-fetched conclusions, I can only note that AFAIK the American Airacobra pilots never managed to accomplish anything similar against Luftwaffe fighters.

In any case, shortly after it had received such a bad beating by II./JG 77, this US Airacobra unit also was withdrawn from first-line service and joined the other Airacobra unit in coastal patrols with the North-West African Air Force - where they were saved from encountering any Bf 109s or Fw 190s.

[JeffK]

Christer,


Its not surprising that the Airacobra suffered heavily over Tunisia, Its more surprising that it was more effective over the Eastern Front.

?? Of the claims made by Russian pilots, were many against Ground Attack/Bomber types, surely the 37mm Cannon would have been effective if hits were made. Whereas over Tunisia/SW Pacific, the far more agile bf109, FW190 & ZeroSen made mincemeat of their pilots.

From memory, the units which defended Port Moresby achieved some success against Japanese bombers.

[Gielle]

I’ve been always amazed by the different accounts you can find on the Airacobra, depending on weather is an American pilot speaking or a Soviet one. While it’s well known the dislike of the USAAF pilots for the P-39, which eventually lead to its retirement from front-line service, it’s also known that Soviet pilots employed many lend lease P-39s with success.

There’s a very interesting interview of a VVS pilot who flew the Airacobra during WWII in http://lend-lease.airforce.ru/english/articles/golodnikov/index.htm.

I’m quoting from the article:

A. S. Nikilay Gerasimovich, could the Cobra really contend with the Bf-109G and FW-190 in aerial combat?

N. G. Yes. The Cobra, especially the Q-5, took second place to no one, and even surpassed all the German fighters.

I flew more than 100 combat sorties in the Cobra, of these 30 in reconnaissance, and fought 17 air combats. The Cobra was not inferior in speed, in acceleration, nor in vertical or horizontal maneuverability. It was a very balanced fighter.

A. S. This is strange. In the words of one American pilot, the Cobra was an airplane “suitable for large, low, and slow circles”. To go further, if we judge by references, then the maximum speed of the Cobra fell below that of the Bf-109F, not to mention the later German fighters. The Allies removed it from their inventories because it could not fight with the “Messer” and the “Fokker”. Neither the British nor the Americans kept it as a fighter airplane.

N. G. Well, I don’t know. It certainly did well for us. Pokryshkin fought in it; doesn’t that say something? [Aleksandr Pokryshkin was the number 2 Soviet ace at the end of the war and flew a P-39 from late 1942 to the war’s end – J.G.]

It seems that everything depends on what you wanted out of it. Either you flew it in such a manner as to shoot down Messers and Fokkers, or you flew it in a way that guaranteed 120 hours of engine life.

Let’s take the speed of the Cobra and the Messer. I had a Q-25 Cobra, with cameras for reconnaissance. Behind the engine were a vertical AFA-3s and two oblique AFA-21s. I simply flew away from a group of Bf-109Gs in this airplane, admittedly in a dive. Perhaps a single Messer could have caught me, but I flew away from a group.



How can you explain such a different point of view about the same machine, being the positive feeling above expressed shared by many others VVS fighter pilots?

[John Beaman]

Isn't the performance of the Airacobra in Tunisia also related, heavily, to the level of experience and skills of the American pilots? This was their first action, against experienced German pilots and they suffered accordingly much like the VVS pilots in 1941. In Tunisia, P-40 pilots also suffered as did P-38s and even USAAF Spitfires flown by Americans. Experience makes as much difference as basic airplane performance (within reason). Look at the number of I-16 pilots who did well when flown by an experienced and aggressive pilot. On the other side, look what happened the the inexperienced German pilots in 1944/45.

[Ruy Horta]

Good point John, incidentally talking of Ratas, they were still considered worthwhile adversaries into the spring of 1942.

Die geheimen Konferenzen des General-Luftzeugmeisters, p. 34

14-04-1942
"Die Rata macht an die front noch erheblichen Ärger. Wenn sie stärkere Motoren bekommt ist sie bestimmt nicht angenehm."

Interesting point made on the same page about Airacobras.

1. those from Britain had British instruments and Russian guns and radio.
2. those that came from the US retained all their US equipment.

Could possibly illustrate that the difference did not lay in home made improvements, since the Soviets clearly appreciated the original US equipment.

[Gielle]

That could be a good reason. Sometimes experience made more difference than aircraft performances, as pointed out by John Beaman ...

[JoeB]

Originally Posted by Christer Bergström

Originally, this was part of my latest posting to the “Tunisia thread”, but when I tried to post it, I got the message that it was too long, so I make a separate thread of this:

All of this, including Reinert’s feat, is a perfect illustration of the Luftwaffe Eastern Front veterans repeating what they previously had accomplished on the Eastern Front against the same kind of fighters.

As I always say, the study of WWII air combat across theaters, and in detail about real losses rather than claims in each theater, is an immensely rich subject.

But your underlying thesis in these discussions seems to be, rather than studying these Western cases for their own merit per se, that they can be used to judge the relative effectiveness of western Allied and Soviet air forces through each's performance against the LW. If this is the goal, surely we would have to include the performance of a western AF directly against the Soviets in a relatively large scale and prolonged air campaign, in Korea in 1950-53. And here, assessing based on documented losses, there was nothing like a general equivalence. The best Soviet units and pilots were pretty capable, but overall the exchange ratio was quite decidedly in favor of the USAF, even aside from its victories against less capable and experienced allied AF's of the Soviets, which together with the Soviets put the USAF at a position of numerical inferiority (as regarded air superiority a/c, mainly in pure battles between such a/c).

If one completely avoids this point whenever it's brought up I think it says something about the quality of the argument being made via WWII. Again, if our purpose is purely to analyze various WWII combats, then the point I make is off topic and not relevant. But if, as seems clearly the case with many recent threads, the point is mainly or importantly to gauge the effectiveness of Soviet and Anglo-American AF's against *each other* with the LW as merely the (inherently imprecise) yardstick, then a discussion of the direct results on USAF-Soviets in the same era is quite relevant and needs to be addressed.

Joe

[Christer Bergström]

Gielle, I don't have the impression that Soviet pilots in general liked the Airacobra. For instance, Arkadiy Kovachevich - who commanded the Airacobra-equipped 9 GIAP at one stage - said that he found it to be a cumbersome machine, quite inferior to the Bf 109s. He said that the only chance the Airacobra pilots had was to climb to a very high altitude before combat, and then make one diving attack against German fighters below. Kovachevich also said that he liked the comfort of the space in the cockpit, but he had to evaluate the aircraft from other angles too. . .

Golodnikov's statements are typical for a fighter pilot with a high self esteem who attains success on a fighter plane and because of that comes to love it. You can find people saying the same about most fighter planes. Read through the entire interview, and you will find that he claims that the The I-16 types -28 and -29 were superior to the Bf-109E; that the I-16 was not outclassed as a fighter until the end of 1942; that the I-16 type-28 and -29 were arguably equal to the Bf-109F; and that the P-40 could contend on an equal footing with all the types of Messerschmitt 109s, almost to the end of 1943.

Of course a skilful pilot can outweigh tecnical inequality between two fighters - just like some of the German veterans managed to do when they fought Mustangs with their Bf 109 G-6s. However, I don't think it is a coincidence that so many first-line pilots expressed their dislike for the Airacobra.

I don't either think that the Airacobra was particularly successful in Soviet service. (I have examined the claims made by a certain Soviet Airacobra unit, and I can tell you that they are not impressive when one examines the actual number of German aircraft shot down by this unit's Airacobras.) The example which I gave of a Soviet success was not typical, but I felt that I had to mention it before anyone would come and ask me why I only described cases when Soviet Airacobra units were badly beaten. (Hence my remark: "However, to be fair. . .") Still, the clashes between German fighters and Airacobras generally ended to the German favour - regardless if the Aircobras were piloted by Americans or Soviets. I will provide evidence of that elsewhere.

I'm not sure the Korean air war can provide us with many valuable conclusions regarding the efficiency of the Soviet air force in the defence of the motherland in 1941 - 1945. I think that those German airmen who faced both the VVS and the USAAF/RAF are the best to judge. My posting was not aimed at proving that either of the Allied air forces was better than the other; rather, I wrote that in early 1943 the differences were not that large as sometimes is assumed - "the Luftwaffe Eastern Front veterans repeated in Tunisia what they previously had accomplished on the Eastern Front against the same kind of fighters."

Anyway, to return to the Airacobra, I don't think that there is any other WW II fighter plane which has been so critisised by its pilots as the Airacobra. Is there any other WW II fighter plane which is so broadly rejected by the men who had to fly it? When I pointed out that in one of my books, I thought it was quite uncontroversial, but since then I have learned that there are some Airacobra fans out there.

Personally, I have one favourite machine - the Mitsubishi. That is natural because I know it better than any other type, and I feel that I can do almost anything with it. I would be prepared to say that it is better than most other types. Of course I'm talking about my Mitsubishi Colt.

[Gielle]

Originally Posted by Christer Bergström

Personally, I have one favourite machine - the Mitsubishi. That is natural because I know it better than any other type, and I feel that I can do almost anything with it. I would be prepared to say that it is better than most other types. Of course I'm talking about my Mitsubishi Colt.

I thougth you meant the Mitsubishi A6M Zeke
To be serious, maybe we can agree with the above post by J. Beaman, who underlined the importance of experience above performances.
Golodnikov was an ace, so he felt confortable even in the Airacobra ..., as was B. Safonov, who achieved more than ten kills with an I-16 against Bf 109 Es.

[Christer Bergström]

Some interesting statistics regarding the Airacobra in Soviet service:

Combat losses among Airacobras serving with VVS KA:

1941: 0
1942: 49
1943: 305
1944: 486
1945: 190

Combat losses among Airacobras serving with VVS VMF:

Through 21 June 1943: 17
22 June 43 - 21 June -44: 77
22 June - 44 - 4 Sept 1945: 30

(VVS KA = AF of Red Army; VVS VMF = AF of Soviet Navy)

It is interesting to note that while the Soviets recorded around 500 Airacobras lost in combat in 1944, the Luftwaffe meanwhile claimed to have shot down around 900 Airacobras on the Eastern Front. Let's assume that some 400 Airacobras were shot down by Luftwaffe fighters in 1944. I strongly doubt the Airacobras managed to shoot down 400 German fighters in 1944.