Svenska jaktplan på Filippinerna - 2
För några år sedan publicerade jag inlägget Svenska jaktplan på Filippinerna. Jag saxar från inledningen:
Här ser vi några exempel på vad man kan få upp när man bildgooglar på P-35A, det vill säga den amerikanska beteckningen på vad vi i Sverige kallar J 9. Tillverkarens namn på typen: Republic EP-106.
Grejen är att det egentligen ÄR just J 9:or på bilderna! Flygplan som amerikanarna 1940 inte levererade till Sverige - 60 stycken av typen kvarhölls och kom att benämnas P-35A (för att skilja dem mot den "egna" versionen P-35).
Av de 120 beställda J 9 lyckades vi som bekant få hem 60, först över Bergen och efter den 9 april över Petsamo. Men i början av juli blev det stopp på utförseln i avvaktan på ett förebådat utförselförbud för krigsmateriel. Kvarnarna fortsatte emellertid att mala och kunde inte stoppas förrän en ny lag blivit antagen. Under tiden hann 48 stycken J 9:or levereras, besiktigas, provflygas, betalas och även förtullas, ty exportlicens var redan utfärdad för 45 av dessa. Men de kunde inte fraktas ut, ty i maskopi med USA suspenderade engelsmännen navicertsystemet och vägrade bevilja ny navicert, dvs lejd genom de spärrade områdena; skeppning utan navicert skulle komma att betraktas som en transport till fiendeland.
Den 10 okt 1940 antogs lagen om statsbeslag å krigsmateriel och man fick brått att lägga sig till med våra J 9:or:
"As part of an promt attempt to strenghten the defence of our most western outpost in so far it was possible the Cheif of the Air Corps in October (1940) directed that forty-eight P-35's, scheduled for shipment to Sweden, to be directed to the Philippines. Late in November the 17th and the 20th Pursuit Squadrons arrived from the United States and took their stations at Nicols Field on the outskirts of Manila." (The Air Force in WW II)
2161 t o m 2180 (tillverkningsnummer 185-1 t o m 185-20)
2181 t o m 2200 (tillverkningsnummer 285-21 t o m 285-40)
2201 t o m 2220 (tillverkningsnummer 385-41 t o m 385-60)
Det sista flygplanet färdigställdes den 7 februari 1941. När de kvarhållna svenska flygplanen överfördes till US Army Air Corps fick dessa serial nos. 41-17434 t o m 41-17493. 48 av dessa skickades till Filippinerna, medan de övriga 12 överfördes till Equador (ifrågasatt uppgift). Det har varit lite svårt att följa upp de enskilda flygplanindividerna, men i ett foruminlägg på WIX hittade jag följande:
Serial Number Sqdn Group Home Base
41-17434 20PS 4CG Nichols Field, PHI
41-17435 3PS 4CG Clark Field, Pampanga, PHI
41-17436 17PS 4CG Iba, Zambales, PHI
41-17436 17PS 24PG Iba, Zambales, PHI
41-17437 20PS 4CG Nichols Field, PHI (W/O May 31, 1941)
41-17438 17PS 4CG Iba, Zambales, PHI
41-17438 17PS 24PG Iba, Zambales, PHI
41-17439 3PS 4CG Clark Field, PHI
41-17440 20PS 4CG Nichols Field, PHI
41-17441 20PS 4CG Nichols Field, PHI (W/O May 28, 1941)
41-17441 20PS 4CG Nichols Field, PHI
41-17442 17PS 24PG Clark Field, Pampanga, PHI
41-17443 HQSQ 20PI Clark Field, PHI
41-17444 3PS Nichols Field, PHI
41-17445 17PS 24PG Iba, Zambales, PHI
41-17446
41-17447 3PS 4CG Clark Field, PHI
41-17448
41-17449
41-17450 20PS 24PG Clark Field, Pampanga, PHI
41-17451
41-17452 17PS 24PG Nichols Field, Rizal, PHI
41-17453
41-17454
41-17455
41-17456 17PS 4CG Nichols Field, PHI
41-17457
41-17458 20PS 4CG Nichols Field, PHI
41-17458 20PS 4CG Clark Field, PHI
41-17459 3PS 4CG Clark Field, Pampanga, PHI
41-17460 17PS 4CG Iba, Zambales, PHI
41-17461
41-17462 17PS 24PG Clark Field, Pampanga, PHI
41-17463 3PS 24PG Iba, Zambales, PHI
41-17464
41-17465
41-17466 3PS 24PG Clark Field, Pampanga, PHI
41-17467 3PS 4CG Nichols Field, PHI
41-17468 20PS 24PG Clark Field, Pampanga, PHI
41-17469 17PS 4CG Nichols Field, PHI
41-17469 17PS 4CG Iba, Zambales, PHI
41-17470
41-17471 17PS 4CG Nichols Field, PHI
41-17472 3PS 4CG Nichols Field, PHI
41-17473 20PS 24PG Clark Field, Pampanga, PHI
41-17474 62PS 56PG Charlotte AAB, NC
41-17475
41-17476
41-17477
41-17478
41-17479
41-17480 17PS 4CG Iba, Zambales, PHI
41-17481
41-17482
41-17483
41-17484 20PS 4CG Nichols Field, PHI
41-17485
41-17486 3PS 4CG Clark Field, PHI
41-17487
41-17488 3PS 4CG Clark Field, Pampagn, PHI
41-17489 3PS 4CG Nichols Field, PHI
41-17490
41-17491 17PS 4CG Iba, Zambales, PHI
41-17492 3PS 34PG Clark Field, Pampanga, PHI
41-17493 3PS 4CG Clark Field, Pampanga, PHI
They were faster, better armed versions of the Air Corps' standard P-35, with a pair of .50-caliber wing guns augmenting the .30-caliber cowl-mounted weapons. They lacked self-sealing fuel tanks and armor, however, typical for the period, but there was a baggage compartment which in a crunch could hold another person (the "crunch" would come later during the Bataan Campaign, when several pilots owed their escape, and their lives, to this feature). According to Joseph Moore, later to command the 20th, when landed hard a couple of times, the P-35 tended to pop rivets and its pilot could often see a small puddle of flammable avgas underneath the leaking wing tanks! Nevertheless, the aircraft was a sturdy, if phlegmatic per former, even if its top speed of 290 mph was seldom seen on the indicator.
Upon uncrating these aircraft at the Philippine Air Depot and cleaning the cosmoline from them, it was found that they still bore Swedish insignia. Instruments and instruction manuals were also in Swedish, and in those pre-metric days, groundcrew had to make cut-outs for the instruments, to show the pilots how high they were and how fast they were going, although judging from the ground sliding below, this was never very fast, and on the approach the P-35A gave adequate stall warning.
Training was mainly in dogfighting and formation flying, neither of which was later useful in combat against the Japanese. The standard flight formation of three planes was unwieldy and hard to maintain. Lt. "Cy" Blanton of the 17th Pursuit Squadron remembered those trios as an "accident waiting to happen," the aircraft flopping around in formation, the pilots finding it difficult to keep X, sight of one another in the flight.
About the same time as the arrival of the 17th in the Philippines. a report had been submitted by Claire Chennault in China, to the War Department, concerning a new Japanese plane called the "Type 0 Fighter" and the best way to counter it. It was pigeon-holed and units like the 17th continued to practice dogfighting in the best World War I tradition. The leader and wingman concept, or "tactical two," as it was then called, was just beginning to be examined in 1940 and then only in the Continental U.S. For a dogfighting machine, the P-35A was stable, but climbed slowly and had a poor service ceiling, particularly for pilots who, at higher altitudes, had to sip their oxygen through a tube. Breathing masks would not appear until 1941.
Sedan kom det japanska anfallet i början av december 1941. Historiebeskrivningen för "våra filippinska J 9:or" finns där på websiten för den som vill läsa mer. Vi ska nog vara rätt tacksamma att det svenska flygvapnet inte behövde använda sina i strid. För, som det också står:
In two days of combat, American pursuit strength had been reduced to twenty-two P-40s and somewhere between five to eight P-35s, out of an original 100 fighters.
