315th History

This brief informal history is adapted from a speech delivered by the late General James Kirkendall, retired, in 1993 at the dedication of the 324th Fighter Group memorial at the Air Force Museum at Wright Patterson Air Force Base in Dayton, Ohio. Kirkendall was one of the original 315th pilots and was eventually commanding officer of the 314th Fighter Squadron. While with the 314th, he led the last U.S. Air Force P-40 mission in Europe, a dive bombing mission over north central Italy.

THE 315TH FIGHTER SQUADRON was activated at Philadelphia Municipal Airport on July 6, 1942. The 324th Fighter Group along with the 314th Fighter Squadron were already activated at Baltimore, Maryland and the 316th Fighter Squadron at Norfolk, Virginia. In late October, the 315th moved to Grenier Field at Manchester, New Hampshire, for training. At about the same time, the other two squadrons and the 324th Fighter Group headquarters moved initially to Kabrit in Egypt near Great Bitter Lake through which passes the Suez Canal and then shortly up the North African coast to join the 57th and 79th Fighter Groups in support of the British 8th Army, which, under General Montgomery, was fighting in the Libyan desert against the German and Italian forces under the command of General Erwin Rommel.

The 33rd Fighter Group was also part of the Allied Forces that landed in North Africa in November 1942. All of these outfits, including the 315th, were equipped with P-40s.

The 315th didn't deploy when the others went overseas because more than half our pilots were transferred out at midsummer to form a squadron to provide replacement pilots for the 33rd Fighter Group. So we got in the new pilots to replace those who had been transferred out. So training continued at Philadelphia and at Grenier Field at Manchester, New Hampshire, after we moved there.

Three months later, in late January, 1943, at Grenier Field, we received orders sending the Squadron overseas. The first orders said destination undetermined. Later secret orders said we were going to Cairo, Egypt. Of course, we actually went to Kabrit, Egypt, where the 57th and 79th had already been.

WE WENT IN TWO SEPARATE GROUPS, an air echelon (illustrated by the RED dotted line above) and ground echelon (illustrated by the YELLOW dotted line above). Each group took a different route. Departing Grenier on January 31st, 1943, the ground echelon went by train to Camp Stoneman at San Francisco, California. There, on February 14th they boarded the USS West Point, formerly the luxury liner America, which had been converted to a troop ship.

The next day, February 15th, the West Point steamed out under the Golden Gate Bridge and headed west across the Pacific Ocean. There were more than 10,000 troops and a 2500-man crew on board -- not exactly a luxury cruise. Two meals a day.

The first stop was Melbourne, Australia. Three days in port with one day ashore for the troops. Then on to Bombay, India, with another day ashore.

Next continuing on through the Indian Ocean and up through the Red Sea to Suez, Egypt, docking on March 29, 1943 -- forty three days after leaving San Francisco. Then from Suez by train up to destination, the British Air Field at Kabrit on the Suez Canal, east of Cairo. The ground echelon had gone more than halfway around the world!

MEANWHILE, the 315th air echelon, including Captain George Armstrong, the Squadron Commander, and 26 other pilots and the flight surgeon, Doc Laughlin, went by train to Morrison Field, West Palm Beach, Florida and after a few days there on to Miami.

There we boarded a Pan American Airways, four-engined airliner.

The plane took us first to South America, then across the Atlantic Ocean to Accra, Ghana, by way of a fueling stop at Ascension Island in the mid Atlantic.

From Accra we went by an AAC C-47 to the British Air Field at Lagos, Nigeria. There, a group of American civilian mechanics under contract to the Douglas Aircraft Company were assembling new P-40Fs which had been sent by ship.

After assembly, we slow-timed the aircraft. Then, in separate flight of about 7 aircraft each, we flew the airplanes across Central Africa to Khartoum, making refueling stops and overnight rest stops at Macadam landing strips laid out in the desert, mostly at French Foreign Legion posts.

At each refueling the gasoline would be poured into our aircraft tanks by native workers They would open up a wing tank, put a chamois skin over the opening to keep out the sand and pour the gasoline in by hand from five-gallon British gasoline cans. It took a lot of five-gallon tins even to fill up a P-40.

Enroute across Africa, the
P-40s were serviced by native crews at refueling stops.

WE HAD NO MAPS and no crystals in our aircraft radios. So each flight followed an A-20. The A-20s, on their way to Russia, were flown by American Service pilots who were familiar with the route. Doc Laughlin rode in one of the A-20s.
At Khartoum, Sudan, the A-20s left us. After an overnight stop we flew north to Cairo following the Nile River, stopping at Wadi Halfa and Luxor for refueling. Although our secret orders read Cairo, we knew the destination was Kabrit, so over Cairo the flight I was with turned to 90 degrees east and shortly were landing at Kabrit air station.

AT KABRIT, WE WERE THANKFULLY REUNITED WITH THE GROUND ECHELON. The ground echelon had gone more than halfway around the world in one direction, and the air echelon went around in the other direction, and by a miracle of operational and logistical planning, we rejoined at Kabrit on the Suez Canal.
Do you remember the Bobby Shafto movie theater at Kabrit where birds flew in and out through holes where the high ramshackle walls and the ceiling came together? And people playing "chase the flashlight beam reflection" on the screen before the move started. I remember those things and the very large bed bugs in the sleeping quarters. After training at Kabrit, we moved up into combat in April 1943 at Kairouan, Tunisia. There we flew with the veteran 79th Fighter Group. My flight records show a first combat mission flown on April 21st, 1943.
After the African campaign ended in May, 1943, we moved up to Cape Bon to the dry lake bed at El Houaria. Here the 324th Fighter Group was all together for the first time. We softened up Sicily and covered the beachhead for the Sicilian invasion, which started on July 10, 1943. The 99th Fighter Squadron (all black) flew with us as a fourth squadron at El Houarouri.
After Sicily was conquered and the Italian invasion was successful, the Group moved in October 1943 to Italy at an airstrip at Cercola, east of Naples at the base of Mt. Vesuvius.
We participated in the long and difficult Italian campaign. You'll remember that Mt. Vesuvius was kind enough to erupt for us while we were there and give us a once-in-a-lifetime show. From Cercola, the Group moved north to Caserta. After the successful Anzio beachhead landing, which we supported, we moved to a flying strip on the beach itself. We continued to support the American Army advance a they moved rapidly up through Italy.

AT NIGHT WE WATCHED GERMAN AIRCRAFT BOMBING THE AMERICAN SHIPS in the Anzio harbor as we had watched them bomb the harbor at Naples when we were at Cercola. One night I recall a German aircraft dive bombed the airfield. Everybody ducked or hit the trenches. No damage from the bombing.

After Anzio we thought we might move to an airfield just outside Rome, but no such luck. The ground forces were moving north so quickly that the Group moved to Montaldo de Castro on the west coast of Italy, 80 miles northwest of Rome.

The advance party arrived there a day after the Army ground forces had taken over the field. At Montaldo the Group continued to fly in support of the ground forces and in "Operation Strangle." On the 6th of July we celebrated the second anniversary of the Group's activation by receiving a Presidential Unit Citation and having a bang-up beach party. As I recall there was a USO show inivolved. A number of people got dunked in the Tyrrhenian Sea including some USO cast members.

Guests of honor were Major General John K. Cannon, the Commander of the lst Tactical Air Force and Brigadier General Gordon P. Saviels (sp?)the head of 12th Tactical Air Command. They didn't get dunked.

ALSO IN MONTALDO IN JULY 1944, the Group converted from P-40s to P-47s. [We felt some] nostalgia for the P-40s, but the P-47s were bigger and better, with more firepower.

From Montaldo de Castro, shortly after mid July 1944, we moved across the Tyrrhenian Sea to the airfield at Gisonochia, in Corsica, which we shared with a B-25 group. We softened up Southern France and covered the successful Southern France invasion of the 7th Army on August 15, 1944.

The American Army forces moved north rapidly and we moved briefly from Corsica to an airfield northwest of Monte Carlo, Franco, then quickly to Istres, the big French Air Force base near the southern coast of France.

From Istres we moved north to Lyon, then to Dole Faveaux southeast of Dijon. I don't need to remind you that there was a lot of effort involved in those rapid moves. The next move in January 1945 was to Luneville, France and finally to Germany at a field near Stuttgart, which was the last overseas base of the 315th's long odyssey.

THE GERMANS SURRENDERED ON MAY 7, 1945. The first atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima on August 7, 1945 and the second on Nagasaki on August 9, 1945. The Japanese surrendered 6 days later on August 15th, 1945, and World War II ended.

The 324th Fighter Group and the 315th Fighter Squadron were important participants in that war: 2 years overseas, 7 campaigns including Tunisia, Sicily, Naples Foggia, Rome Arno, Southern France, Northern France, Germany.

THE 324th FIGHTER GROUP WAS AWARDED 2 PRESIDENTIAL UNIT CITATIONS AND THE FRENCH CROIX DE GUERRE FOUR GROUND ECHELON MEMBERS AND 30 PILOTS LOST THEIR LIVES AND ONE, PAUL BULL, WAS SHOT DOWN IN ITALY, CAPTURED, AND SPENT A YEAR IN GERMAN PRISON CAMPS.