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Posted on 01/17/2004 2:46:31 AM PST by snippy_about_it
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 are acknowledged, affirmed and commemorated.
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 Training for War To fly these night fighters, the United States needed a different breed of aviator. So difficult and dangerous was the assignment that the AAF relied on volunteers only. Yet the mission was so exciting that there were always plenty of volunteers. One wartime ace, Robert F. “Shorty” Graham, described night flying as “an indescribable experience, with its stars, moon, and cloud valleys,” that helped offset the dangers. In addition to having the basic flying skills, the night pilot had to master twin-engine flying, night formation flying, night gunnery, night recognition, night navigation, ground control radar, and blind landings. The enormity of this task, compounded by a shortage of training aircraft and instructor pilots, delayed the formation of the first specifically planned U.S. night fighter squadron, the 414th, until January 1943. Priorities were never high because the same British squadrons that had helped to defeat the German Night Blitz over England were still available to fight for night air superiority in support of the Allied cause. Back in the United States, the AAF assigned the V Interceptor Command initial responsibility for night training. En route to the Philippines in 1941 when the Japanese launched their invasion, Col. Willis R. Taylor’s command was ordered back to Orlando, Florida, to train personnel for defense wings. Taylor put Maj. Donald B. Brummel in charge of the 81st Fighter Squadron. With no trained instructor pilots or R/Os, no aircraft, no radar, and no communications equipment, the 81st in July 1942 faced the monumental challenge of training sufficient crews to man seventeen night fighter squadrons within twelve months.  Night training began in July 1942 at the Fighter Command School, Night Fighter Division, AAF School of Applied Tactics in Orlando. Brummel had a core of U.S. veterans who had served with the British in the Battle of Britain and soon dispatched five more of his original officers to train in the United Kingdom. Equipped with three B-17s, one B-18, and twenty-two P-70s, the school did not get Beechcraft AT-11s for airborne radar training and P-61s for combat training until March and November 1943, respectively. Three squadrons directed night training: the 348th at Orlando (initial training and instrument flying), the 349th at Kissimmee Field (transitional training), and the 420th at Dunnellon Field (operational training). As more training aircraft became available, the 424th Flying Training Squadron also assumed responsibility for operational training.  Aircraft shortages kept flying training, in one graduate’s opinion, “very rudimentary.” Though a squadron commander, Maj. Oris B. Johnson 17 got only six flights in a P-61 before being sent overseas. The School of Applied Tactics ordered the 348th Squadron to fly 5,925 training hours in February 1943, but with only eleven operational aircraft, each aircraft had to fly twelve hours out of every twenty-four-an impossible task. To make matters worse, one of the eleven P-70s was being used to test a new radar, and two were flyable but unusable because of radar failure. To recruit students, Brummel searched the various flying schools in the United States, looking for pilots with twin-engine training and especially for those with experience in night takeoffs and landings. In 1942 the requirements included a minimum of six months’ service as a rated pilot, moderate night vision, skill in instrument flying, “extreme stability of temperament,” knowledge of squadron administration, and ability to command. Maj. Gen. William Kepner, commanding all fighters supporting strategic bomber operations from England in 1943 and 1944, wrote the commander of IV Fighter Command, in charge of the night fighter training fields: "Night fighter pilots must be picked for their ability to operate at night and that means able to use a lot of instruments, and of course they must be fed and prepared physically to have good eyesight at night. You must have a willingness to fly alone long distances at high altitude with low temperatures. In other words they should combine all the aggressive and dogged fighting characteristics with a somewhat phlegmatic disposition that bores in like a bulldog without any other idea than getting the job done. Their courage and resourcefulness will have to exceed, if possible, all that any pilot has ever had before. This is some guy and you have to produce him." Twenty-seven volunteers from the 50th Fighter Group were the first to answer the call, heading to Williams Field in Arizona for transition training before departing for Florida in August 1942. Simultaneously, two dozen volunteer R/Os entered Airborne Radar School at Boca Raton, Florida. Once this original cadre filled the training program, the Florida schools began accepting volunteers at the end of basic flying training. Trainees had to complete twin-engine flying training and Training Command’s B-25 transition school before beginning night fighter training.  Training consisted of two phases; night flying and night fighting. First came 78 daylight flying hours and 137 hours of ground school, followed by 76 flying hours and 30 hours of ground school in night fighting. Subjects included instruments, airborne radar, night navigation, meteorology, aircraft recognition, searchlight coordination, and airborne radar ground control radar coordination. Lacking real nighttime combat experience, the AAF created a training program that was ad hoc from the beginning. In all, the night fighter crew would receive 93 hours of instrument flying, 90 hours in a Link trainer, 15 hours of night interceptions, and 10 ground control radar intercepts. Remarkably, no provision was made in the curriculum for night intruder attack tactics until late July 1943, when an RAF pilot with sixteen night victories introduced the tactics to the U.S. training program. Having established four training squadrons and activated ten night fighter squadrons in Florida, the AAF ordered the entire night fighter training program to California in January 1944, to be headquartered at Hammer Field near Fresno. The Air Staff had decided that the School of Applied Tactics should not be in the training business, though the ground control radar training program would remain at Orlando. Under the overall supervision of Fourth Air Force and the 481st Night Fighter Operational Training Group, commanded by Lt. Col. William R. Yancey, night crews were organized into Overseas Training Units and entered three phases of training.  Phase One consisted of familiarization training at Bakersfield Municipal Airport. Phase Two, designed to weld pilots and R/Os into teams, along with instruction in day and night interception, was conducted at Hammer Field. Phase Three advanced training, including intensive night flying practice, took place at Salinas Field. Each phase lasted approximately one month. Finally, after two more months of organizational training at Santa Ana Field, the night fighter squadrons were ready for transfer overseas. The 481st graduated three units shortly before D-Day-the 423d NFS in March and the 425th NFS and 426th NFS in May 1944. Then the AAF made another change in the training program. In May the 319th Wing under Col. Ralph A. Snavely replaced the 481st, with the 450th and 451st AAF Base Units supplanting the training squadrons. The director of operations, responsible for day-to-day training, was Lt. Col. Winston W. Kratz. Under Snavely, the 319th Wing completed training for five new Night Fighter Squadrons: the 427th, 547th, 548th, 549th, and 550th.  549th NFS Training itself was intense and hazardous. The AAF claimed the accident rate “never reached alarming proportions,” but admitted “it was serious enough to demand the constant attention it received.” One R/O, 2d Lt. Robert F. Graham of the 422d NFS, said he flew six to eight hours each night in a strenuous program that he believed prepared him for the rigors of combat. And preparing for combat meant flying under combat conditions, which meant young men were going to die. Missing from the program was any training in night intruder interdiction flying, not added until March 1945 and then only two hours’ worth. In April 1943, the 414th, 415th, 416th, and 417th Night Fighter Squadrons, the first units to complete the training, received their orders to deploy overseas. The squadron commanders complained that the men had not received enough flying time and had no experience in the Beaufighter, which they were told they would be flying in combat. The war, however, would not wait.      |
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