Morning Patrol
D-Day, June 6, 1944, and the weeks that followed were an extremely demanding period, not only for the Allied ground forces, but also for the British and American air forces. Soldiers in ground and airborne units naturally bore the brunt of the entire invasion and suffered the greatest casualties; anyway, the crews of bombers and the fighter pilots of the RAF and USAAF also did their part.
#84214
BOXART STORY
D
-
Day, June 6, 1944, and the weeks that
followed were an extremely demanding period,
not only for the Allied ground forces, but also
for the British and American air forces. Soldiers
in ground and airborne units naturally bore
the brunt of the entire invasion and suffered
the greatest casualties; anyway, the crews of
bombers and the fighter pilots of the RAF and
USAAF also did their part. For them, the invasion
had actually begun much earlier in the form of
direct combat deployment. In the final weeks
before the invasion, Allied attacks—in addition
to the relentless strategic bombing missions into
the heart of the Third Reich itself—increasingly
focused on supply routes, airfields, and other
targets of military significance along the entire
Atlantic coast of the Old Continent. Everyone
knew what this meant. The reasons for these
operations were clear to pilots, residents of the
French coast, and the German Army itself.
The final phase of the secret preparations for
the fighter units on D
-
Day began in the early
evening of 5 June, when the bases were sealed
off, the mechanics started painting the invasion
stripes quickly, and the flight crews started
attending briefings. This also applied to the 357th
FG, the first unit of the VIII Fighter Command to
be equipped with P-51 aircraft. The first invasion
briefing took place at the unit‘s Leiston base
at 23:00 on 5 June 1944. For their first mission
of the day, the unit‘s pilots took off in very bad
weather at 02:10. Their task was to patrol the
Bay of Biscay. Taking off in pitch darkness
and forming up proved an extremely difficult
task. They failed to form the planned formation.
After passing through the clouds, the aircraft
broke up into smaller groups; some continued
independently, setting course for their assigned
area. Navigation was difficult — the bad weather
and low clouds that had aided the landing troops
so much that morning now caused the pilots
great difficulty.
The commander of one of the 363rd FS, Captain
Clarence E. ‚Bud‘ Anderson, forgot to perform
the necessary engine cooling procedures while
taxiing. As a result, glycol from the overheated
engine sprayed onto his windscreen through
a safety valve. Anderson corrected his mistake
and prayed that the engine would cool sufficiently
so that he wouldn’t have to abandon the mission
prematurely. Fortunately, he didn’t lose much
coolant and was able to take off into the tense
night. He recalled the following moments himself:
“In the dark, we got the three squadrons
together. I locked my flight onto that of Don
Graham, who was leading the Group, and we
headed out over the Channel. The only resistance
we met over France was a little flak. Although
the glowing tracers looked closer at night, and
much scarier. When we reached our sector,
Graham ordered lights out, and there was only
the blue flame from Graham’s exhaust to home
in on. I’d lose him from time to time, and despite
radio silence, I’d call out, ‘Red Lead, flash your
lights,’ to find him. We circled for hours like that.
Dawn broke, and there were Colonel Graham,
his wingman, me, and ‘O’Bee’ O’Brien—four
planes. There wasn’t another plane in the sky.
I’d locked onto Graham, and O’Brien, leading
another flight, had locked onto me. Either we
were in the right place, or the other 44 planes
were. Some guys got so lost they ended up over
Spain. Jim Browning said later that when the sun
came up that morning, he looked down and saw
he was over a coastline that ran east and west.
He decided it had to be Spain, turned north, and
flew for more than two hours to get back to
England.
The four of us flew circles until it was time to go
home in midmorning. Flying home, we had a quick
glimpse of history through the breaks in the cloud
cover; the vast armada of ships, the beaches under
siege. Six hours and 50 minutes after takeoff,
we landed at Leiston with plenty of fuel in
reserve.”
The 357th FG flew a total of eight missions that
day, with some of its pilots taking off repeatedly.
Bud Anderson recalled that this was the longest
he had ever spent in the cockpit of a P-51 on
a single mission. It lasted a full seven hours
minus five minutes. In the following days, the
focus of the missions shifted from patrols to
ground attacks. Between 6 and 15 June 1944, the
357th FG alone dropped more than 469 bombs,
primarily on road and rail transport targets.
Like his entire 357th FG, Bud Anderson returned
to the routine work of escorting bombers on
missions deep into the continent. On 11 July 1944,
he completed his operational tour with a score
of 12.25 confirmed kills. After a period of rest,
he returned to his group and began his second
tour. He finished this on 15 January 1945 with
a final total of 16.25 enemy aircraft shot down,
two probable kills and two damaged aircraft.
Illustration: Piotr Forkasiewicz
Morning Patrol
Text: Jan Zdiarský
INFO Eduard
49
July 2026