OCR Text |
Show Use New Type 'Air Cavalry' P-51 Mustangs, at 50-Foot Levels, Act as Scouts, Advance Patrols. j ALLIED HEADQUARTERS IN NORTH AFRICA. A new type of "air cavalry" was developed in Sicily by the Allied air force, it has just been revealed. In the old days, armies would send a cavalry detachment for swift patrol work, "to gather information and break up enemy detachments. That is now being done by P-51 Mustangs, Mus-tangs, which hedge-hopped around Sicily doing reconnaissance work for the tactical air force. Led by its 26-year-old commander, command-er, this flight is used for observation and, like any patrol, if it sees a chance, it attacks. Often the planes flash along the roads 50 feet from the ground, and 500 feet is their pilots' idea of high flying. Act as Scoots. They reconnoiter roads, harbors, and coves that might hold shipping. They do scouting of all kinds, such as noting vehicles on the roads, the type of country, the number of landing-craft at a particular place. It Is dangerous work, but they move o fast and it is still so novel that, although it is rare for a day to end without bullet holes in every plane, only one pilot was lost during the Sicilian operations. , "We whiz along at ground level most of the time," said the commander, com-mander, Squadron Leader S. G. Welshman, who is an Australian.1 "We do such high speed that the enemy can just see our tail before he knows we've passed over. We shoot up enemy troops by hedge-hopping, hedge-hopping, coming on them unexpectedly unexpect-edly and throwing them into complete com-plete confusion. Before they can recover, re-cover, we are miles away. "We have to go low to observe our targets clearly. Two of us always al-ways fly together. There are a leader lead-er and his 'weaver.' The leader notes everything he can see, while the weaver watches that his companion com-panion is not attacked by enemy fighters. i Also They Strafe. "We strafe when we get the chance, of course. Since the campaign cam-paign in Sicily opened, we have hit five trains in the 'toe' of Italy, shot up two engines, which exploded, and destroyed more than 30 motor vehicles, ve-hicles, three ack-ack posts and three landing craft." Several times these pilots went over the Strait of Messina under fire from both sides, as well as from enemy destroyers. They dodged barrage balloons and they always came back with valuable information informa-tion on enemy shipping movements. In eight months the. pilots of this group have won 14 decorations. Before Be-fore the Sicilian campaign they flew Baltlmores in photographic reconnaissance. recon-naissance. Ordinarily, the Mustangs fly between be-tween 4,000 and 6,000 feet, in which case they do photographic work. It was a Mustang group that first discovered dis-covered and photographed that unmapped un-mapped road in northeastern Sicily' that played such an important role; in the final stage of the campaign. A variation of the P-51 the A -36 Invader fighter-bomber, especially adapted for dive-bombing also did yeoman work during the Sicilian campaign. ! |