RUTHLESS JUG JOCKEY Flying with the 317th Fighter Squadron BY LT. GEORGE NOVOTNY, USAAF RET.), AS TOLD TO AND WRITTEN BY JAMES P. BUSHA

I HAD ALWAYS WANTED TO BE A FIGHTER PILOT, the man in charge,” if you will. After I had earned my wings in 1943, I was given the choice of single-engine fighters or bombers. Although multi-engines may have sounded safer, I knew that the only person who would be able to put my flying abilities to the test was me! I was sent to the 54th Fighter Group in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, to begin my indoctrination into becoming a fighter pilot. Most of the guys in the group had just returned from combat in the Aleutian Islands and the whole group was getting ready to go to the Southwest Pacific.

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My fighter checkout was in the Curtiss P-40 Warhawk. When I pushed that throttle forward for the very first time, I watched in complete horror as that long pointy nose swung to the side—there was a lot more torque with the P-40 than what I was used to in the AT-6!1 ended up zigzagging down the runway trying to correct my rudder and stick mistakes. In all honesty, I wasn't that impressed with the P-40 at all. Not because it tried to kill me that first time I] took off in one, but because about the only thing it could do well in combat was dive. It took forever for the Allison-powered P-40s to struggle to 16,000 feet, and believe me, we weren't able to get much higher than that. By the time! got comfortable in the P-40 and with visions of white sand beaches and tropical Pacific weather, I was told] would be sent to North Africa. Before I knew it, 1 was half a world away in Casablanca and a new member of the 325th Fighter Group known as the Checkertails.

Joining the Checkertail Clan Early P-40 combat

By May of 1943, I was flying combat with the 317th Fighter Squadron at the controls of a P-40F; now, that airplane was a real dog” to go into combat with! It had a Rolls-Royce Merlin engine that replaced the Allison, but it still couldn't get us much past 18,000 feet. Most of our early missions were escorting B-26, B-25, and A-20 twin-engine bombers. I recall one mission where we were supposed to rendezvous with some South African A-20 Havocs and it was darn near impossible to keep up with them. They were faster than we were as our tongues were hanging out trying to keep up with them. Even at full throttle, the P-40 lagged behind. Like I said, it was a dog, but in a turn chasing tails with an enemy fighter, it was a real scrapper.