MUSTANGS over Normandy

P-51s search and destroy targets of opportunity

- JAMES P. BUSHA

Spring 1944: Allied heavy bombers and their airborne "little friends" had been hammering away at Fortress Europe since early in the year. Around-the-clock strategic bombardment missions, in concert with low-level "Chattanooga Choo Choo" strafing missions by Allied fighters, helped soften up intended targets. As fliers, our objectives were railways, airfields, and German emplacements, and to knock the Luftwaffe out of the sky.

A newcomer, the North American P-51B/C Mustang, had recently joined the battle-tested P-38 Lightnings and P-47 Thunderbolts of the U.S. Army Air Corps. With its "long legs," the Mustang could stay with the bombers all the way to the target. Once the bombers released their loads, the Mustangs were set free to roam and search out and destroy targets of opportunity.

As the fighting intensified on two fronts, Hitler's Germany was in a stranglehold. This was the eve of D-Day, the greatest and mightiest invasion the world had ever known. The final knot in the hangman's noose was about to be tightened.

May 1, 1944 1st Lt. Dan Tuchscherer 359th FG, 370th FS