The 79th Fighter Squadron then attacked airfields across the

Jutland Peninsular. Two passes were made over the airfield at Jagel.

Lt. Pogue claimed an Me109 damaged on the second pass.

A further landing strip near Hutzfeld was also attacked with

Lt. Pogue claiming to have damaged a He177. These were the

last claims made by a pilot flying 44-13535. The aircraft would fly

another six missions with the last on one 21st April. The 20th Fighter

Group flew one further mission on 25th April but “Chattanooga

Choo Choo” wasn’t scheduled to fly. By this point there were few

worthwhile targets left in the little that remained of the Third Reich’s

territory. Thirteen days later the Germans surrendered and the war

in Europe was over.

44-13535 had flown 107 combat missions to targets all across

occupied Europe, had visited the Soviet Union and Italy, had been

flown operationally by 35 different pilots and was responsible for

the destruction of five enemy aircraft and damaging a further four.

As the war in Europe became a memory and the world returned

to some form of normality a huge number of combat aircraft were

scrapped. Having an illustrious war time record was not reason

enough to keep an aircraft and on 21st August 1945 44-13535 was

recorded as having been scrapped, probably at RAF Speke.

P-51D-5-NA, s/n 44-13535

Lt. Edward F. Pogue, 79th FS,

20th FG, Kings Cliffe, United Kingdom,

1945

Lt. Edwin Pogue with his ground crew and other personnel sat on 44-13535 MC-R “Chattanooga Choo Choo”.

INFO Eduard - August 2019

eduard

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