Thunderbolts Triumphant: The 362nd Fighter Group vs Germany's Wehrmacht

Introduction

For people with a casual understanding of the air war over Europe during World War II, what first comes to mind is armadas of bombers, escorted by packs of P-51 Mustangs, fighting their way through flak and German fighters. This image was cultivated by Eighth Air Force’s own carefully picked staff of public relations specialists. The Eighth had to sell the concept of daylight precision bombing, and in the process it helped create its own legend.

Far below these streams of B-17s and B-24s, an equally bloody but largely unheralded air war was waged. While the Eighth Air Force fought a strategic war, the aviators of the Ninth Air Force—men in medium bombers and, especially, the P-47 fighter—were tasked with taking the fight to German troops in the field. This was air-to-ground warfare, up close and personal; the targets were not cities but individual trains, trucks, tanks, and troops. Occasionally, the P-47s tangled with German fighters, but the primary mission focused on interdiction of supplies and support of troops on the ground. Instead of facing flak fired from 4 miles below, these missions were flown in a lethal blizzard of 20mm and 37mm light flak and small arms fire. No less deadly were the blasts and debris of the P-47s’ own bombs, which claimed the lives of many inexperienced pilots.

The most remarkable of these P-47 units was the 362nd Fighter Group (FG), which flew against Germany from the beginning of 1944 through D-Day, the Ardennes offensive, and the final drive into Germany. The group was the aerial artillery for U.S. ground forces, first around Normandy, then in reducing the defenses around the surrounded city of Brest, then in supporting the Third Army as it drove across France and into Germany. As the noose closed on the Nazi empire, the job only became more difficult; the enemy, squeezed into an ever-smaller area, brought his flak guns with him, increasing the density of fire thrown at the Thunderbolts and making combat ever more hazardous.

When the Ninth Air Force compiled its list of its nine best air-to-ground aviators in late 1944, five of them came from the 362nd. Led by two very different leaders—the disciplinarian Morton Magoffin and the beloved Joe Laughlin—the 362nd destroyed over 5,000 trucks, 350 tanks, 275 artillery pieces, 45 barges, 3,500 pieces of rolling stock, and 600 locomotives. The unit also destroyed almost 300 enemy planes (131 in the air, 162 on the ground). This score came at a cost—in June 1944 alone, the group lost 30 planes and 27 pilots. Throughout the war, the group lost more than 70 pilots killed; other groups referred to it as the 362nd Suicide Outfit. However, Laughlin was a master motivator and morale in the unit remained remarkably high.

The brave men of the 362nd FG strangled the German Army in the field and spared the lives of countless U.S. troops. They pioneered the missions that American aviators perform today, but did it without precision-guided munitions, Mach-1 speed, or a network of search-and-rescue assets to pick them up if they were downed. Theirs is a story that deserves to be remembered.

CHAPTER 1

The 362nd Stands Up

General Orders No. 7 Paragraph 1, Headquarters, I Fighter Command, Mitchell Field, New York, issued on March 1, 1943, called for the activation of the 362nd Fighter Group at Westover Field, Massachusetts. Initial personnel came from the 321st and 322nd Fighter Squadrons of the 326th Fighter Group, also based at Westover. The first group roster had 55 enlisted men in various roles.

On the final day of March, Lt. Col. Morton Magoffin arrived to take command of the group. Magoffin was a West Pointer who graduated near the top of the class of 1937, initially assigned to the iconic 94th Pursuit Squadron at Selfridge Field, Michigan, flying the Seversky P-35. In March 1940, Magoffin transferred to Wheeler Field in Hawaii, and he was there when the Japanese attacked. Then-Captain Magoffin was sent back to the mainland and became a memb er of III Fighter Command pilot replacement training staff in Tampa, an assignment he bristled at. After agitating for a command, Magoffin went to the 359th FG briefly before getting his own unit.

The group stands for inspection at Groton Army Airfield. Note the Vultee BT-13 at the far left. (Via Gerry Asher)

The flamboyant Morton Magoffin in the cockpit of a very clearly marked P-47. Magoffin was ultimately one of only three aces in the group. (Via Friends of the American Fighter Aces)

Magoffin was a no-nonsense officer; newcomers to the group received a one-page memo instructing them to hew to military standards and behavior—or else. Queer, individualistic uniforms will not be tolerated, Magoffin wrote. This is a well-organized fighter group, not a troop of the Mexican Cavalry, Dismounted. Another section proclaimed that No drinking can be tolerated during duty hours or prior to any flying duty. If you must have a bottle during the day, then come around and get it over the head.

On April 3, Major Charles Teschner was assigned commanding officer (CO) of the 378th Fighter Squadron (FS) and Major Ben S. Irvin was named Commanding Officer (CO) of the 377th FS. Irvin was a two-time silver star winner for his experience with the 9th Fighter Squadron, 49th Fighter Group, in defense of Darwin; Teschner, like Magoffin, had been at Wheeler Field during the Japanese attack. On April 10, Capt. Lester M. Chancellor was assigned as CO of the 379th FS. However, Chancellor moved to operations officer on May 15, when Nebraska-born Major Joseph Laughlin took command of the 379th FS.

After joining the Air Corps in 1939 and earning his wings in 1940, Laughlin had also been in Hawaii during the attack on Pearl Harbor. In Hawaii, one of Laughlin’s duties was teaching aircraft identification; among his pupils was future ace Francis Gabreski. After the attack, he became the commander of the 45th FS, 18th FG, and logged 350 hours while patrolling the islands in 1941 and 1942.

In June, following a period when the mechanics were forced to work on planes of the 326th FG to stay in practice, the group began to receive its own planes and pilots. Lieutenants William Flavin, Sherwin G. Desens, and Carroll Peterson joined the group as pilots on June 20, and on June 22 the squadron welcomed 29 more new pilots. Sadly, that afternoon, one of the new arrivals, 2nd Lt. Richard Burdick, was killed at Westover Field in a taxiing accident when another Thunderbolt ran into his and its propeller smashed into Burdick’s cockpit.

On June 22, the group moved to Bradley Field in Windsor Locks, Connecticut, a 20-mile trip made memorable by the sight of hundreds of waving schoolchildren lining the streets of Springfield, Massachusetts. Training resumed in short order, and so did the accidents.

Bob McKee, Art Wilcke, and Ken McCleary were assigned a flight in the late afternoon of June 26. The four planes were soon airborne to practice high-altitude formation flying.

At 22,000 feet over Long Island Sound, McKee noticed some engine roughness, and throttle and mixture adjustments didn’t help—in fact, the engine began running rougher. Art soon informed me that I had begun to trail a thin stream of gray smoke from the right side of my engine, McKee later wrote. "I also noticed that I was slowly losing power and it became necessary to begin a descent to maintain airspeed.

The trailing smoke became more dense and darker as I initiated a turn back toward the Connecticut coast, McKee continued. He hoped to make it to the airport at either New Haven or New London, as each had adequate runways and fire-fighting equipment. He went on to describe what happened next:

Iowan Bob McKee would fly 226 combat missions, earning four distinguished flying crosses and 23 air medals and remaining in the USAF until 1961, but his nearly disastrous training flight over Long Island almost ended his career early. (Via Andy Anderson)

I was losing altitude fast as I approached the Connecticut coastline at around 5,000 feet and found that I was about halfway between the two airports; they were now out of reach. When I observed how congested the coastal area was with homes, cottages and marinas, I made a fast descending right turn back over the water. I now knew that I was going to have to bail out—soon. When I realized I did not have a parachute that was equipped with a dinghy, I made a hard left turn back over the coastline, past the populated coastal area.

At 1,500 feet, Art advised me that the lower right side of my engine was in flames, although from the cockpit I could see no visible fire. At about 1,200 feet, I leaped from my cockpit.

McKee thought he’d executed a textbook bail-out: canopy open, belts checked and tightened, aircraft slowed to near stalling speed, nose slightly high, engine RPM to maximum available, and then leap from the cockpit as if reaching for the wingtip. But the textbook was not being consulted by the P-47:

As I left the cockpit and the slipstream forced me toward the tail of the aircraft, the right side of my parachute harness at belt level became hooked over the vertical rail that the pilot’s seat adjusts up and down on. As a result, my body was now flapping alongside the cockpit as the aircraft stalled and began a nosedive toward the ground. I managed to reach back to the opened canopy’s leading edge with my right hand and pulled myself halfway back into the cockpit. I released the hooked parachute harness and then rolled away. I saw the horizontal stabilizer pass me by just inches. I immediately pulled the parachute ripcord and threw it as far as I could—I’ve often wished that I had saved it. I heard a loud whump! sound, sort of like the opening of an umbrella in the wind. I looked up and saw the opened parachute canopy, then looked down just as I went into the trees.

The P-47 crashed and exploded about 200 feet from McKee, who found a clearing where he waved to the circling Wilcke. The Connecticut Highway Patrol soon arrived and picked up McKee. In the end, his only injuries were a few patches of poison ivy he acquired after hitting the ground.

The armaments motor pool at Westover Field, with a collection of M1 bomb service trucks, M5 bomb trailers, and Chevrolet G-506 1½-ton trucks. (Via Gerry Asher)

Not all accidents ended so fortuitously. On July 16, Lt. George S. Palmer, one of the flight leaders of the 379th, lost control of his P-47D and dove into the ground just off the end of the runway at Bradley Field, killing him. Between July 17 and July 28, four more pilots belly-landed or suffered landing accidents, with no loss of life.

On July 30, 2nd Lt. John Dixon of the 378th took off for an afternoon flight and started losing altitude shortly after leaving the runway. He turned left and tried to get the Jug down on the south end of Bradley Field but overshot the runway, bouncing just as he left the landing area and crashing through a stand of trees. Although the plane was completely wrecked, Dixon survived with only a case of mild shock.

On August 1 and 2, the 378th and 379th traveled to the Army Air Base at Groton, Connecticut, giving the squadrons a bit more room to train. At Groton, the 379th’s field pointed directly out to sea. The officers decided to throw the enlisted men a beer bash on the beach and secured several kegs of beer for that purpose.

The party was a success—and soon, the beer was gone and the men went looking for more. They found it at a nearby roadhouse called the Swiss Villa, and the party resumed afresh. Soon, some sailors from the nearby submarine base instigated a fight—more like a riot, according to Sgt. James Andy Anderson. The fight spilled out of the roadhouse and into the street; soon, the parking area was filled with tables, chairs, broken glass, and even the jukebox, thrown through the front window by Sgt. Big John Chodor. Before long, a platoon of MPs arrived and collared 40 of the men, hauling off 10 offenders—including Andy Anderson and pilot Lt. Walter Booth—to the guardhouse. Major Laughlin was able to talk the MPs into releasing the men to his custody, and asked Anderson to write a report about what happened. Anderson handed it in and awaited his punishment.

Instead, Laughlin gathered the squadron in a hangar and said that he knew he didn’t have any fair-haired boys in his outfit. Before they left Groton, Laughlin pledged, he would personally lead the squadron back to the Swiss Villa and they would clean the joint out! This boosted Laughlin’s esteem within the squadron immeasurably.

Fun and games aside, the losses in training continued to mount. Back at Bradley Field, on August 4 Lts. Charles Armstrong and Richard Huber of the 378th were killed in a mid-air collision, and Lt. Homer Waits of the 377th was killed on August 19 when his P-47C crashed into the Connecticut River after an engine failure.

September saw an assortment of near-misses. On September 11, just before landing at Groton Field, Lt. Ted Jensen discovered one of his main gear would not extend, so he diverted to Westover Field for a belly landing. The next day Lt. Carl Haering’s plane caught fire, but he was able to crash-land, suffering cuts and bruises. On September 19, in perhaps the hairiest mishap, Lt. Wilfred Crutchfield was practicing stalls when his plane snap-rolled and went into a spin so violent his controls failed; Crutchfield fought his way out of the whirling Thunderbolt and pulled his rip cord safely 2,000 feet above the ground.

On September 16, the group moved to Suffolk Air Base on Long Island for gunnery training, and three weeks later, in preparation for deployment, it relocated to Mitchell Field on Long Island. Some men were able to attend the Washington Redskins vs. New York Titans football game at Ebbets Field. On November 13, the entire group loaded equipment, tools, files, and personal gear and departed for Camp Shanks, New York, its port of departure.

While personnel were able to steal away into New York for evening adventures during their first week at Camp Shanks, on November 21 they boarded the liner Queen Elizabeth for the trip across the Atlantic.

CHAPTER 2

On-the-Job Training

On November 29, 1943, after eight days, the Queen Elizabeth pulled into the Firth of Clyde, docking in Greenock, Scotland. The men lugged their equipment off the ship and marched to the train station. After a long rail trip through Doncaster, Lincolnshire, and Cambridge, the group disembarked in Colchester, only to receive a sobering welcome to the war; a stricken B-17, trailing flames, dived low over them and crashed in a nearby field. From there, it was a truck convoy to Station 159, Wormingford, the group’s new home.

It took exactly a month for the group’s first 15 P-47s to arrive, relieving the men from their seemingly endless ground training. The delivery also put an end to a rumor that the 362nd would get P-51s. But aircraft were hard to come by, and by the end of January 1944, the group still had only 38 P-47s.

On January 21, Lieutenant Colonel Magoffin, Captain Clough Gee, Captain Hugh Houghton, and other pilots flew a series of missions as part of the 355th FG: an escort mission, followed up by missions on January 24, 29, and 30. On January 30, while flying as part of Yellow Flight of the 358th FS, Maj. John Fischer received a report of bogies and turned toward them, but then spun left for two turns, recovered, climbed, then spun to the right three times, said Lt. Lawrence Dissette. He almost succeeded in bringing his ship under control. Fischer bailed out of his borrowed P-47C-2-RE over Koblenz, Germany and was taken prisoner, becoming the 362nd’s first combat casualty.

The group received a preview of its real specialty on January 31, 1944, when Magoffin and three other pilots flew as part of a dive-bombing mission with the 355th as it and two other P-47 groups attacked the Gilze-Rijen Airdrome in Holland with 500-pound bombs.

On February 8, the group flew its first operational mission, escorting B-24s to Noball V-1 launch sites near the Pas-de-Calais. This mission, and the following four, were led by Col. Francis Gabreski, on loan from the 56th FG.

New York City’s George Rarey was an accomplished commercial artist before he joined the USAAF, and as a result he painted nose art on at least 28 aircraft. Rarey learned to fly before he learned to drive; his sketchbooks, secreted away and brought home by Bob Doty, provided a unique window into life in the USAAF in 1943 and 1944. (Via Andy Anderson)

Marion Morphew was part of the 378th’s initial cadre of pilots, flying with the squadron through the summer of 1944. Morphew remained in the USAAF, serving in Vietnam and Korea, before his untimely death in 1977 at age 56. (Author’s collection)

On February 10, the group flew an escort for bombers as far as the Zuiderzee north of the Netherlands. Just after leaving the bombers, the Thunderbolt of Lt. Daniel Sipe suffered a balky engine and pulled away from the rest of Blue Flight of the 378th, composed of Lts. Vernon Boehle, William F. Hall, and Marion Morphew. Almost immediately, the flight was jumped by two or three Bf 109s. There was a cry of ‘break,’ said Morphew. All three of us made a tight spin and went down. The under-strength flight was scattered, and Hall was shot down over the Dutch town of Vaassen by Oblt. Ernst-Heinz Lohr of III/JG.1 and killed. The German fighters tried a similar tactic against the 379th, but Major Laughlin scored a probable victory over a Bf 109.

The next day, the group flew another escort to the Pas-de-Calais area. Two of the 379th’s planes were damaged by flak. With Lieutenant Colonel Magoffin and Captain Tom Liston flying with the 379th, the group again escorted bombers to Arras on the Pas-de-Calais on February 12. One fighter was badly damaged by flak, and landing accidents damaged the P-47s of Lt. McCleary and Major Laughlin.

Some pilots questioned why so many planes were hit by flak on these missions, and they wondered why Magoffin would lead them through areas known to harbor heavy flak concentrations. This criticism was one of a number leveled at Magoffin; a few pilots said they believed his focus on the mission was often accompanied by his disregard for the safety of his pilots. Many of the men resented his hardline approach to discipline. On one occasion, Jack Barensfeld recalled, he made three experienced pilots sprint around the airfield perimeter for failing to salute him. Later, Magoffin discovered a group of men lining up for the mess hall too early and punished them by giving them close order drill, then making the men wait in formation until the rest of the group had been served. On another occasion, Magoffin didn’t think his aircraft was polished sufficiently and, in a fit of pique, tossed a bucket of water on his crew chief.

Others wondered about his tactical approach. He had a World War I mindset—you go up, you fight the bad guys in dogfights, you come home, said one pilot. He wasn’t really able to grasp the World War II realities, especially when we went from escort to attacking ground targets.

Another pilot said the CO came to have the surreptitious nickname McGoofinoffin, although no one dared to say it in front of him. For a fairly green unit, Magoffin was the right commander, but as the men gained experience, his approach wore thin on many of the pilots.

After a week-long break caused by bad weather, the group launched a two-part mission covering the penetration and withdrawal of bombers over the Aachen and Mönchengladbach areas on February 20. The next day saw another escort mission, this time to Braunschweig. The 379th took bombers 75 miles into Germany, and they sighted enemy fighters in the distance, but refused to be lured away and leave the bombers unexposed.

Vernon Boehle was a noted builder of flying model airplanes before the war (his Boelhe Giant is still a popular design with enthusiasts), then joined the Eagle Squadrons of the RAF before the U.S. entered the war, ending up in the 4th FG when the Eagle Squadrons were absorbed into the USAAF. Boehle disliked the P-47 intensely, so when the 4th FG converted to Thunderbolts, and he saw the Ninth Air Force’s 357th FG become the pioneer Mustang group, he transferred into the Ninth Air Force—only to have it become an all-P-47 force! (Via Gerry Asher)

February 22 brought another withdrawal support mission. While escorting a straggler at 10,000 feet, Yellow Flight of the 378th spotted two Fw 190s of 7/JG.26 trying to get between them and the straggler. I made one orbit with my section of four directly over him and on completion of this I was amazed to see two Fw 190s had materialized out of thin air and began to fire at the B-17, said Lt. Vernon Boehle. I immediately shoved everything forward and dove down vertically as I was directly over the B-17 at the time.

Lt. Boehle peeled off to attack them so I stayed about 1,000 feet above to provide top cover, said Lt. Crutchfield. Lt. Boehle got on the tail of one of them. As the other Fw 190 was getting into position to attack Lt. Boehle, I attacked him.

Boehle, a veteran of combat in the P-47 with the 4th Fighter Group, wanted out of Thunderbolts, and when he learned the Ninth Air Force’s 354th FG was getting Mustangs, he requested a transfer to the Ninth Air Force. To his chagrin, he ended up in P-47s, while, in time, his old unit switched to P-51s. Just the same, he was one of the few men in the group familiar with escorting bombers.

My attack wasn’t well planned, he admitted. My speed and angle were so terrific that I had to pull out on the far side and then close to avoid overshooting them. I started firing at approximately 300 yards at the leader. Looking up and back into the sun, I saw what appeared to be two and then suddenly six more Huns who were approximately 2,000 feet above and endeavoring to position themselves on the rest of my section, which had followed me down.

We immediately went into a tight Lufbery and Lt. Boehle called the squadron leader for help, reported Lt. Haering. None arrived, so we broke down at full power. One Fw 190 caught me shortly after going into the dive and let go a burst that damaged considerably my tail section, severing the trim tab control wires and all but tearing off the right-hand portion of the elevator. I lost him through violent evasive action and fought to get the plane under control. I had lost the flight by this time, so I set course for home at 3,000 feet. Haering was able to crash-land at Hornchurch.

Meanwhile, the remaining P-47s kept up a running battle with the Fw 190s. In the course of the battle I fired at at least five planes, two of them head-on attacks and the rest slight deflection shots, said Boehle. He continued his account:

The Hun stalked us throughout and we would momentarily lose them and then find ourselves in a whole mess of them. Several times, at an opening in the clouds, I obtained a view of a Thunderbolt chased by two, three or more Huns and each time managed to dive in and shoot at the Hun firing on the P-47, forcing him to break off the attack. Every time I would do this there would always be one behind and below me and several times three or four more behind a mile or two. It was impossible to concentrate on firing under these conditions with any accuracy. As soon as the Hun doing the firing would break off I would immediately break off myself and do a climbing turn to port to elude the one following me. In each zooming climb I always managed to put enough distance between myself and the pursuing Hun or Huns to get in a nearly head-on attack and then break for home again.

Boehle saw three Fw 190s chasing a P-47 on the deck. The nearest was 100 yards from him and firing, Boehle said. He continued:

I was approximately one