The Eagle Squadrons join the USAAF

At the end of September 1942, three Royal Air Force fighter squadrons flown by American volunteers passed under the command of their own country’s air arm. Nos. 71, 121 and 133 Squadrons, known as the Eagle Squadrons, were handed over to the Eighth Air Force of the United States Army Air Forces and became the 334th, 335th and 336th Fighter Squadrons of the 4th Fighter Group. The date is often given as 30 September. The transfer ceremony, however, took place a day earlier, on 29 September, at Debden airfield in Essex, and that day is generally taken as the date of the transfer.

Volunteers from a neutral country

When war broke out in Europe, the United States was a neutral country. The Neutrality Acts and older laws prohibited recruitment for foreign armed forces on American soil, and serving in them could cost a man his citizenship. Even so, hundreds of young Americans wanted to fight. Some left in the winter of 1939–1940 to fly for Finland in the Winter War and, once it was over, made their way to France and England. Most, however, went by way of Canada. In 1940 the Canadian First World War ace Billy Bishop and the American airman and illustrator Clayton Knight set up a committee which, semi-openly, recruited pilots in the United States for the Royal Canadian Air Force and the RAF. According to the figures usually cited, it had examined some 6,700 applications by December 1941. In London the matter was taken up by Charles Sweeny, a wealthy American businessman, who persuaded the British government to form a squadron made up entirely of Americans.

Unlike candidates for the US Army’s air arm, the volunteers did not need a university education, but they did need around 300 hours of flying time. In England they went through operational training units and were given RAF commissions. They wore British uniform with a shoulder patch bearing an eagle and the letters “ES”. A few Americans had already fought in the Battle of Britain with ordinary RAF squadrons; three of them, Vernon Keough, Andrew Mamedoff and Eugene Tobin of No. 609 Squadron, became the first pilots of the new unit. None of the three lived to see the squadrons handed over to the Americans.

Three squadrons

No. 71 Squadron was formed on 19 September 1940 at Church Fenton in Yorkshire. It became operational at the beginning of 1941 and scored its first confirmed aerial victory over Lille on 21 July 1941. No. 121 Squadron followed in May 1941 and No. 133 in July. The squadrons began on Hurricane fighters and later converted to the Spitfire Mk V. They flew convoy patrols, bomber escorts and offensive sweeps over occupied France. After the attack on Pearl Harbor their pilots went to the American embassy asking to be taken into US service, and the airmen of No. 71 Squadron even wanted to go off to fight Japan in Singapore. The RAF refused.

The only time all three Eagle Squadrons fought together was over Dieppe on 19 August 1942. According to tallies cited in the literature, by the end of September 1942 they had claimed 73.5 German aircraft destroyed. A total of 244 Americans served in their ranks, and 77 of them were killed. The pilots received twelve Distinguished Flying Crosses and one Distinguished Service Order (DSO).

Preparing for the transfer

From the moment the United States entered the war it was clear that the Eagle Squadrons would pass under the American flag. An American air command was being built up in England, and in the summer of 1942 American airmen flew their first combat missions over Europe. Yet the negotiations dragged on for months. The RAF wanted compensation for losing three experienced squadrons, and ranks, pay and badges all had to be settled. Major General Carl Spaatz, commander of the American air forces in Europe, wanted to spread the veterans among the new fighter groups so that they could pass on their experience. The pilots insisted on staying together, and got their way. Ranks were converted to their equivalents: a flight lieutenant became a captain, a wing commander a lieutenant colonel. Since none of them had been through Army Air Forces training, they were given American pilot’s wings but were allowed to keep reduced-size RAF wings on the other side of the tunic.

The 4th Fighter Group was formally constituted on 22 August 1942 and activated on 12 September, under Colonel Edward Anderson. The squadrons were to keep their Spitfires until American fighters arrived.

Disaster over Morlaix

Three days before the transfer, No. 133 Squadron suffered the worst defeat in the history of the Eagle Squadrons. On 26 September 1942 its twelve new Spitfire Mk IXs were escorting American B-17s, which in the six weeks since the first raid on Rouen had been striking one target after another in France. This time the target was the airfield at Morlaix in Brittany. Above thick cloud, a strong northerly wind – according to accounts, more than 150 kilometres an hour – pushed the formation far to the south, out over the Bay of Biscay. The airmen could not see the ground and did not know where they were. With fuel running out, the squadron, convinced it was over England, let down through the cloud and found itself above the heavily defended port of Brest.

Anti-aircraft fire and German fighters shot down or forced down almost the entire formation. Of the twelve aircraft only one reached England, and it crashed on making a forced landing. According to the most commonly cited figures, four pilots were killed, six were taken prisoner and one managed to evade the Germans. Among the prisoners was the Briton leading the squadron that day, Flight Lieutenant Gordon Brettell, whom the Germans shot in 1944 after the mass escape from Stalag Luft III. The disaster was not the reason for the transfer, which had long been planned, but it stripped the 336th Fighter Squadron of most of its pilots before it had even come into being.

The ceremony at Debden

On 29 September all three squadrons assembled at Debden. Present were Spaatz, Brigadier General Frank Hunter, commander of the American fighter command, and William Sholto Douglas, head of RAF Fighter Command. Douglas thanked the Americans for having come of their own free will when Britain most needed help, and closed with the words: “Goodbye and thank you, Eagle Squadrons of the Royal Air Force. And good hunting, Eagle Squadrons of the United States Army Air Forces.” The Stars and Stripes was raised beside the light-blue RAF ensign, and a band played the American national anthem.

Place in the war

On 2 October 1942 the 4th Fighter Group flew its first combat mission under American command. At the beginning of 1943 it received P-47 Thunderbolt fighters, and in 1944 P-51 Mustangs. It was commanded in turn by former Eagle Squadron pilots, among them Chesley Peterson and Donald Blakeslee, while another veteran, Don Gentile of the old No. 133 Squadron, became one of the most famous American aces in Europe. The group was among the first to escort bombers over Berlin, in June 1944 it accompanied the first shuttle mission from England to the USSR, and it fought on until April 1945. The American fighter command credited it with more than a thousand German aircraft destroyed in the air and on the ground, more than any other group of the Eighth Air Force.

The Eagle Squadrons were more than a curiosity. Their pilots brought to the American air force two years’ experience of the war over the English Channel at a time when most American fighter pilots had yet to see the enemy. They also became a symbol: Americans had fought alongside the British before their own country entered the war.