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Pursuit Aircraft - World War II

The U.S. Army Air Service used the term “P” for pursuit aircraft, adapted from the French Avion de Chasse for pursuit or hunt airplane. After World War II, the term fighter was formally adopted by the USAF with the designator “F.”

The struggle for air superiority in the Second World War was greatly affected by technology. Aerodynamic performance, more powerful engines, and stronger structural integrity significantly expanded aircraft maneuverability, speed, range, and operating altitudes. Technological evolution took these propeller-driven aircraft higher, farther,and faster. Machine guns remained the primary armament, but they were much more accurate and deadly in this war. Variations in mounting, number of barrels, and caliber were augmented with the increased accuracy provided by improved gyroscopic gun sights. The legendary British Hawker Hurricane, German Me-109, British Spitfire, American P-40 Warhawk and P-51 Mustang were all the products of these enormous technological advances.

The advent of the all metal mono–plane gave credibility to the emerging doctrineof strategic bombardment. The Air Corps became polarized between bomber and pursuit advocates, where the dominant doctrine of employing self–protecting bomber formationsdevalued the role of long–range escort. The Spanish Civil War experience proved the need for long–range escort. This late realization prompted the programs that eventually produced an effective long–range escort.

The transformation of the military fighter aircraft into a thoroughly modern form had also taken place by 1936. The Seversky XP-35 was typical of the modern fighter aircraft developed in the middle to late 1930s. The XP-35 was a low-wing cantilever monoplane with a retractable landing gear, a fully cowled radial engine equipped with a geared single-speed supercharger, and a controllable-pitch propeller; the enclosed cockpit was, at that time, quite an innovation in fighter design. The aircraft was of stressed-skin metal construction and employed trailing-edge landing flaps. Wheel brakes and a tail wheel were also fitted.

In 1939, the Seversky Aircraft Company changed its name to Republic Aviation Incorporated; thus, the XP-35 may be considered the progenitor of the famous P-47 Thunderbolt fighter of World War II. Only about 75 P-35 fighters were built, between July 1937 and August 1938, at which time the aircraft was probably obsolete or obsolescent because of its relatively low horsepower. Refinements in fighter aircraft development were taking place at a rapid pace during this time, although the basic configuration concept of the propeller-driven fighter aircraft changed very little from that of the P-35.

The chief fighter planes used by the AAF during World War II were the P-38, P-39, P-40, P-47, and P-51. In the earlier part of the war two groups in ETO were equipped with the British Spitfire, and in the last year of hostilities the P-61, a night fighter, became a familiar item of AAF equipment. One other plane, the P-63, was manufactured in quantity, but it was never used as a first-line combat plane and most of the output was sent to the U.S.S.R. on lend-lease.

During the 1930's the Air Corps fell behind other nations in the development of fighter-type aircraft. This lag is explained in no small part by a primary interest in the long-range bomber. Not only did that interest hold first claim on limited funds, but progress in the development of larger bombardment planes affected assumptions governing plans for fighter aircraft. The bombers built in the 1930s flew at speeds equal to or even in excess of those achieved by contemporary pursuit models, and this fact, as GHQ Air Force explained early in 1940, "advanced the thought that airplane design had reached the point where a large airplane could be made to go as fast as a small one and that the defensive armament of the large plane was more than a match for the small plane."

From this line of reasoning may be traced one of the major blunders of the AAF — its failure to provide in advance for the need of escort fighters in its heavy bomber operations. The big bomber, it was assumed, could take care of itself, and thus no need even existed for developing a fighter of sufficient range to serve as an escort plane. Conversely, the proponents of the self-defending big bombers argued that the role of the fighter as an interceptor would decline, an argument which may help to explain another glaring deficiency of the war years — the lack of an effective night fighter, whose job is basically that of interception, until late in the war. How far the point should be pressed is debatable, but there can be no doubt that Air Corps doctrine in prewar years assumed "the ascendancy of bombardment over pursuit" and that this assumption hindered the development of pursuit aircraft.

At the opening of hostilities, pursuit units of the Air Corps depended chiefly upon two planes, the P-39 (Airacobra) and the P-40 (Warhawk). Both of them were approaching obsolescence despite the fact that they had been in production for not more than eighteen months on 7 December 1941. The two planes constituted more than half of all AAF fighters until July 1943, and prior to September of that year more than half of all those committed overseas. By August 1944 all P-39 groups had been converted and in July 1945 only one P-40 group remained in operation.

Especially disappointing was the P-39, whose low ceiling, slow rate of climb, and relative lack of maneuverability put its pilots at a decided disadvantage wherever they fought. The P-40 proved to be a much better plane. Though a slow climber, given time it could reach altitudes permitting superior skill and tactics to offset the advantages of the enemy. The record set with the P-40 by more than one commander, but especially Chennault in China, was very creditable, but as other planes became available a continuing equipment of P-40's was an unfailing mark of low priority. That the planers record owed much to the fact of its employment chiefly against the Japanese rather than the German Air Force is indisputable.

In 1936 and 1937, the years in which the P-39 and the P-40 had been designed, the job indicated for them by national policy was one of coastal defense and of support for ground combat. And for those jobs the planes were not badly designed. No potential enemy promised to put high-level bombers over our coasts, and against an amphibious assault the rugged qualities of the two planes at low levels should have made them most useful in beating off the assaulting forces. In low- level strafing and bombing, the P-39 and P-40 repeatedly showed their worth during the war; as Kenney reported from the Southwest Pacific, each of the planes could "slug it out, absorb gunfire and fly home".

Between 1940 and 1944, when acceptances ended, a total of 9,558 P-39's and 13,738 P-40's were accepted. Peak AAF inventories show 2,150 P-39's in February 1944 and 2499 P-40's in April of that same year. As these figures suggest, the greater number accepted were eventually shipped to our Allies, among whom the Russians valued especially the P-39 for its effectiveness in low-level support of ground troops.

The over-all limitations of the two planes were such that the addition of superchargers seemed inadvisable in view of the promise that superior planes could be substituted. The first of these superior planes to make its appearance was the Lockheed P-38 (Lightning) — a high-flying twin-engine fighter of outstanding qualities. Designed in 1937 for high-altitude interception, the plane was Lockheed's first venture into military production.

The AAF had come by the end of the war to depend still more heavily upon Republic's P-4J (Thunderbolt). In fact, after January 1944 groups equipped with P-47's represented better than 40 per cent of all AAF fighter groups serving overseas; after March of that year inventories never showed less than 5,000 of the planes on hand.

By 1943, in many different places within the AAF, experimentation was demonstrating possibilities for the extension of fighter ranges which surprised American, British, and enemy combat commanders alike. i The problem was largely one of increasing fuel capacities, and the most important of immediate aids to this end was found in the disposable fuel tank, a device known for many years and to which the AAF had given close attention since 1940. As the engineers concentrated on all aspects of the problem, increased range came to be the single most distinguishing feature in the development of AAF planes during World War II. And of all fighter types none had the potentiality displayed by the P-51, a plane which the AAF had been slow to appreciate.

The Northrop P-61 (the Black Widow), which saw service during the last year of the war, was the first American plane specifically designed for service as a night fighter, for which a need had been repeatedly felt from the early days of hostilities. The coal-black plane proved itself capable of a variety of night missions, operating as an intruder as well as an interceptor. An attempt to modify a late model P-61 for use as a long-range day fighter was made in 1945, but the development was overtaken by the end of the war.