Wolfpack Warrior

A New Pilot Learns from 56th FG Pros.

- Capt. Russell S. Kyler, Usaf

I graduated from flight training on the 8th of February 1944 at Camp Eagle Pass, Texas. After 10 hours of fighter transition training in the P-40, I was transferred to a field at Baton Rouge, Louisiana, where I came face to face with the P-47 Thunderbolt. I’d been flying the little T-6 Texan and the P-40, both small aircraft compared to the P-47. It was a huge machine.

Our instructor introduced us to the aircraft, a Razorback C model. I looked at it in utter amazement and then slowly at my instructor, a captain just back from combat duty. I said, “Captain, that’s not a fighter. That’s a single-engine bomber.” He laughed a little bit and said, “Well, lieutenant, when you get well trained in that aircraft and get into combat with it, you’ll think it’s the finest aircraft that was ever made.” And no truer words were ever spoken.

I wasn’t very impressed with it at first. It was just a big clumsy machine as far as I was concerned, with its beer barrel-like fuselage and huge radial engine. I didn’t know what it would really do, but the more I flew it, the better I liked it. By the time, I finished my transition training, I was pretty confident in my ability to fly and fight in it.

My fighting days would soon arrive, as I was sent to England in mid-August of ’44. We went to a transition training base in central England, and trained a couple of weeks practicing formation flying and getting better acquainted with the English weather and the different combat tactics we were to use against the Luftwaffe. Satisfied that we wouldn’t get lost over England, I was shipped out and was fortunate enough to be sent to the 56th Fighter Group.

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