The Legacy of Night and All-Weather Flying

America’s night airmen operated at the periphery of the war effort. While British and German strategic bombing transpired primarily at night, U.S. airmen were committed primarily to daylight bombardment operations, except for B-29 fire raids on Japan’s cities. In the explosive expansion for war, the AAF mobilized 1,226 squadrons, including 4 night fighter training units, 1 night reconnaissance unit, and 16 combat night fighter squadrons, each authorized only twelve aircraft. Of the more than one hundred thousand fighter aircraft that the United States produced for the war, only nine hundred were night fighters. Night units were never formed into groups, wings, or commands, but operated independently as squadrons, attached to higher echelons such as the IX Tactical Air Command. Only 666 night fighter crews served overseas. They fought in Europe, North Africa, Italy, Sicily, Corsica, France, Germany, Burma, China, the Philippines, and any number of exotic locations, some well known, others not: La Senia, Elmas, Ghisonaccia, Borgo, Pontedera, La Banca, Pomigliano, Honiley, Bristol, Istres, Strassfeld, Giebelstadt, Maupertus, Chateaudun, Coulommiers, Madhaiganj, Chengtu, Hsian, Pandaveswar, Myitkyina, Lingayen, Puerto Princesa, Guadalcanal, Dobodura, Cape Croisilles, Karkar, Hollandia, Morotai, Milne Bay, Saidor, Saipan, Iwo Jima, Nadzab, Peleliu, Okinawa, Middelburg, Palawan, Mindoro, Zamboango, Tarakan, Sanga Sanga, Owi, Palawan, and Ie Shima.

Larger numbers and higher priorities probably would not have boosted their contribution. Night fighters were solitary hunters; they could not enter combat in formations. Doubling or tripling their numbers would not have brought greater success, especially with so few targets. What successes they had, 158 officially recognized night kills, can be attributed to the quality of their weapons, the commitment and quality of their crews, and luck. On the other hand, their failures were caused by the limitations of their aircraft and weapons and inadequate training. Members of the 422d NFS were convinced that if night fighters and their crews were “assisted by certain mechanical aids” and properly trained and employed, “then sortie for sortie they will prove as deadly if not more so than their day counterparts.”

Obviously, night work was dangerous. On intruder missions crews normally had to make two passes, the first to see and identify the target and the second to bomb or strafe it. With flak batteries alerted, second passes often meant death or a trip to a POW camp. The 419th NFS spent 639 days in combat from its arrival on Guadalcanal on November 15, 1943, to its last mission from Palawan Island on August 14, 1945. In 1,972 combat missions, the squadron claimed five Japanese aircraft destroyed at night-at a cost of twelve pilots and eight R/Os and thirty-one aircraft lost to enemy action or crashes. Night interception missions were always fought alone, though with the comforting thought that within range a ground controller watched every move on a radar screen. Retired Maj. Gen. Oris B. Johnson, wartime commander of the Europe-based 422d NFS, never felt lonely on night missions. He was “too damn busy,” except the one time in December 1944 when solitude might have been preferred. His ground controller vectored him onto eight FW 190s flying in formation. Eight were too many to mess with, even though on a previous night Johnson had willingly attacked a flight of three because he knew he had radar “eyes” and the Focke-Wulf pilots did not.

Ironically, the enemy aloft was not the only source of danger. Crews in the Pacific flying at twenty thousand feet amid air temperatures of ten degrees below zero complained of a headquarters decision to withhold heated flying suits from aircrew in that “warm” tropical theater. Instrument failures, a nuisance during the day, were deadly at night. But on August 15, 1945, the 419th’s squadron historian could record that after “the peril of tropical diseases, the dearth of supplies, a monotonous diet of dehydrated and canned food, and the total lack of civilization or female companionship for twenty-three uninterrupted months . . . morale received a tremendous boost when President Truman announced the surrender of Japan.” “When do we go home?” replaced all thoughts of danger and the difficulties of night flying.

The downing of 158 enemy aircraft in the war seemed out of proportion to the 900 expensive P-70s and P-61s and 16 combat squadrons the United States mobilized to control the skies at night. What damage might enemy night bombers have inflicted if they had flown against Allied forces unopposed? Maj. Gen. Oris B. Johnson believed night fighters contributed mightily to Allied victory, seizing the night skies from the Axis powers, but also, and more importantly in the long run, establishing “the basic concepts of all-weather flying critical to American victory in DESERT STORM.” As early as 1945 airmen began to speak of a new concept in aerial warfare-the “24-hour all-weather Air Force.” Though they had only “scratched the surface” of night intruder possibilities, these night fighter pioneers, with their victories and sacrifices, laid the foundation for a new form of aerial warfare, which would be revealed in all its devastating intensity nearly five decades later in the night skies over Iraq.