Word: squadrons
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Dates: during 1940-1949
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...Spence, once one of the famed "Little Beavers" squadron (TIME, July 17); 24 survivors from more than 300 officers and enlisted...
From secret northern bases, bomb-carrying Mustangs flew out to pound and strafe Jap airfields at Tsinan, in Shantung Province, 800 miles northeast of Chungking. In two assaults, 67 Jap fighters and bombers were smashed. The outfit which gave the enemy this stinging surprise was the "Yellow Scorpions" squadron, named for the gaudy spinners on the planes' noses. The squadron had first distinguished itself in Burma; when it was transferred to China, the Japs had hailed the move as an opportunity for revenge. Now the enemy had more revenge...
Until early 1943 the Forty-niners flew nothing but P-40s. Then they reluctantly accepted their first P-38 Lightnings. "The P-38 was strictly a truck," says one squadron's records, describing the first reaction of pilots. "Old Darwin men knew they would never see the real scramble again or . . . the close-quarter hairy old rat races above the field." But after the required 50 hours' training in P-38s, all the Forty-niners were won over...
...Manila. Last September the 49th's Ninth squadron was the first U.S. fighter outfit to hit the Philippines. In October the Forty-niners arrived on Leyte, to base there. They could boast of having bred most of the Southwest Pacific's fighter aces, including eleven currently in action. Their biggest continuing source of pride is Major Bong, now a roving gunnery instructor who occasionally roves with his old buddies. On a sweep over Mindoro last week, Dick Bong bagged his second Jap fighter in a week, ran his score...
...another flagrant case, the command ing officer of a troop carrier squadron was in on a deal that netted $2,000 a trip, amounting in all to $50,000. His planes often landed at out-of-the-way fields under pretense of motor trouble, so that smugglers could unload under cover of darkness. In another case, a U.S. soldier and four Chinese were arrested in Kunming with $7,000 worth of sulfanilamide...