Anybody know if 11th Fighter Sqn flew P-40Ks? Only info I am finding is for 40Es. 18th FS had Ks. Also, what did the fighters in the Aleutians do after the reoccupation of Kiska in Aug 43? IJA bailed in Aug. but the US still bombed and “invaded” the empty island) Bombers were busy attacking the Kuriles. Dont think fighters had the legs to go there. Trying to figure out if a K with tiger head would be legit.
1 Like
Timothy, so far I found no evidence of P-40Ks in the 11th. What I did find is that only a few P-40s had the Aleutian Tiger nose art. Nor can I find reference to Col. Jack Chennault’s time as CO; I though about cross-referencing his time as CO with delivery dates of P-40Ks. In fact, can’t hardly find anything about him. At a genealogy site, found a newspaper clipping about him visiting home after time in the Aleutians, and his tombstone. It shows WW2 and Korea.
Great site: Aleutian Tigers – 343 Fighter Group P-40E Warhawks – Inch High Guy
Thanks for the info. From what I’m finding I dont think 11th had any Ks. I know 18th FS got them. In fact the photo of the 2 birds receiving maintenance (Dell and Flamin’ Mama. Flamin’ Mama is a K. Dell. not sure. ) are 18th FS birds. So is 4Q/00. Couple sites I found on them… 18th Fighter Squadron (p40hawksnest.com) Asisbiz Curtiss P-40E Warhawk 343FG11FS Yellow 585 Adak, Alaska Sep 1942 George Hicks (p40hawksnest.com)
1 Like
I saw that picture of flaming Mame and the other one in maintenance. Looking through a site I found where the child or grandchild of the pilot of flaming name wrote in and commented.
Somehow in all my P40 research I’ve missed the Hawks nest - great find!
I think I already sent you this but here’s a site I found a few weeks ago when we were talking about P40s: http://www.p40warhawk.com/
From what I read, the 11th fighter Squadron had a mix of P-40s and P-38 s. The 343 did not fully equipped with P38 until 1945. Chennault was the CO in 1942. Going by what seems to be the usual tenure of a fighter group CO, he was probably gone by early or mid 1943. I’m not sure when P40Ks showed up, I’m thinking it was early to mid-43. My guess is that by the time Ks showed up, all of the Es had been worn out and scrapped, and Chennault was gone and with him, the desire to paint the elaborate tigers on the nose.
One thing really interesting about those color photos is that you can see that that fine volcanic dust sandblasted all the paint off of the back of the propeller blades. Doesn’t seem to have bothered the front of them which would make sense, but it also sandblasted the wings from the wing root out to the landing gear leading edge protrusions.