D-Day From the Perspective of a P-51 Mustang Pilot

It is the early summer of 1944 and both sides of the battle in Europe can feel the fight approaching a crucial moment.

This moment would end up being June 6th of 1944, D-Day, and as the soldiers on the ground are preparing to storm the beaches they would undoubtedly need cover from the air.

This cover would come from the brave men of the Eighth Air Force, men like Ed McNabb.

But this was no easy task: low-level ground support was always a high risk endeavor and as we will see in this video it would involve intense combat, close calls, and tragic losses.

As we turn the page in Ed McNeff’s flight log to the month of May, we can see one interesting change.

In the months of March and April nearly every combat entry was high-level escort missions.

This is typically the role that comes to mind when we think of the Mustang in Europe.

But in May of 1944 these entries began to change.

Now we can see dive bombing practice takes two of the slots on this page.

An abrupt change in the middle of the war, using valuable time of seasoned pilots to practice a new skill set.

It almost feels as if the Eighth Air Force is preparing for something—something big.

This something was obviously Operation Overlord, the Allied invasion of France that would come to be called D-Day.

And with this massive operation the P-51 pilots of the 355th Fighter Group would be needed in a new role: that of low-level bombing and attack to disrupt supply lines and eliminate defenses for the ground troops.

And while this might seem like an easy task, that could not be farther from the truth.

Low-level bombing not only left these fighters more exposed to anti-aircraft and German fighters, but dive bombing was also not easy to master.

It was a difficult attack method that involved calculation, timing, and feel for the tactic.

Because of this, these practice sessions would be very important.

But with only a couple of weeks until D-Day they would not have nearly enough time to become experts in this method.

Bomber escort and aerial fighting is air-to-air, which means that while it is three-dimensional you’re looking at another moving target and you’re trying to establish either what is referred to as a lead pursuit, lead lag, or curve so that you can aim your bullets and your trajectory to get in a position to fire.

Different from that is again going back to dive bombing.

While it sounds relatively simple, it isn’t as easy as you think.

I learned this flying air tankers and dropping retardant on fires and you have to consider the effects of wind, angle of descent, and one of the big things would be in a Mustang is simply being able to get that pitch angle.

Because if the pitch angle varies then the release of the bomb will vary the trajectory of the bomb.

In addition to that you have the inevitable guy on the ground shooting at you.

There are some fairly famous gun camera videos floating around of guys coming in to attack a train and then they find that the sides of the train open up and there’s a machine gun nest inside the train and you can see the tracers coming from the machine guns back towards the airplane on the gun camera footage.

So you have to figure not only trying to get the trajectory and the angles correct, get the bomb on target (because if you place it half mile off it does you no good) but you also have to deal with avoiding the ground fire that’s coming at you.

As the end of May is drawing near, another big change was coming to the 355th: a new version of their P-51 was beginning to arrive.

While the Mustang had been a groundbreaking and effective fighter, improvements needed to be made and these would come in the form of the D model.

With these D models another interesting feature would be added: the famous invasion stripes that were to prevent friendly fire in the chaotic landings in France.

But interestingly enough these D models were not given out all at once, but rather oftentimes on an as needed basis as the new aircraft began to arrive.

So as the weeks went on Ed and many of the others were still in the B model until they had to make the switch.

But in the meantime everyone was preparing for the big day.

By this time in England the invasion force had assembled and the constant bombardment of France made it clear that the Allies would soon be invading Fortress Europe.

D-Day: Well you know leading up to D-Day all the airplanes were painted with black and white stripes.

We had black and white stripes on the fuselage and black and white stripes on the wings and that was to try to hopefully prevent Navy gunners from shooting us if we got in their area—then called D-Day stripes.

I think the major thought was finally because we’d had two or three false starts and then all of a sudden this is the day you are going.

Here in his logbook we can see that on June 2nd, 3rd and 4th the 355th participated in escort missions and then on June 5th much needed rest was given before finally the day had arrived.

June 6th of 1944: As thousands of American, British and Canadian soldiers were about to storm the beaches of France, the Mustangs of the 355th were taking to the air.

As a Eighth Air Force fighter pilot we didn’t have an assignment down on the beach head.

We were assigned patrols and it was interesting because we’re a bunch of fighter pilots—they fighter pilots I might emphasize—and we were taking off about five o’clock in the morning or maybe 4:30 and of course it was dark.

So I’m a flight leader and I’ve got three guys on my wings.

We take off in elements, two each, and then they join up and you’re supposed to go out for a certain number of one thousand one, one thousand two, one thousand three and then make a 180 degree turn and get into the squadron lineup.

Well I never did get into the squadron lineup and we had three overcast—little uh not too thick—800 feet at the base at the airfield and then another maybe seven thousand and another one a little higher than that but they’re all thin.

We were doing time-distance to our patrol area… but in the meantime you can also see all the glow from the naval bombing at the beach heads down there.

So up through these overcast clouds he had the glow of the beach head bombing and shelling.

So we know where we were going kinda.

We got into what we thought was our patrol area and set up an oval track to do our patrol in case we were called upon to do something else—which we were not.

And as the day broke we looked out and there’s another patrol over here and another one over there and another one over there and the most dangerous thing for us on D-Day was running into each other.

So we did our patrol, nothing happened, we came home.

The first mission of the day, which was primarily a patrol, went on rather uneventful.

Poor cloud cover made much of the patrolling difficult, so as the troops were hitting the beaches the 355th actually saw little action other than simple flak.

So they returned back to England in a few hours.

But this was not the only mission that they would be assigned on D-Day.

Almost immediately after returning the Mustangs were loaded up and refueled for another assignment—and it would be, you guessed it, dive bombing.

This second mission would go on to have more than enough action to go around.

For this sortie the P-51s of Ed’s group were outfitted with bombs and they were instructed to hit targets of value on the ground in France—especially any vehicles or supplies that were headed to the beaches to fortify defenses.

This would prove to be of the utmost importance to the boys fighting on the ground.

The whole idea would be to suppress enemy fire as much as possible to try to get a beachhead for the soldiers…

D-Day and after D-Day some of them were loaded with bombs underneath the wings where they normally carried fuel tanks and their role was to go out and do dive bombing.

They have been trained a little bit for dive bombing but my guess is it was they were still going to be a little bit inaccurate because they just didn’t have a lot of experience.

They’re going to be bombing bridges, troop buildups if they can find a troop build up, but probably primarily roadways, bridges, railways to try to stop the supplies and the reinforcements to the German forces.

So at approximately 11 A.M Ed and the other pilots took off.

Until this point Ed had primarily been a wingman with the goal of protecting his leader, but now a seasoned veteran of nearly four months he had been moved up to a flight leader himself: the lead pilot in Blue flight.

His wingman for this mission was a 20 year old Mississippi boy by the name of Thomas J Foster.

Thomas Foster had just joined the 355th in May but had proven himself to be a capable pilot.

On May 24th he shot down a Messerschmitt for his very first kill without wasting any time.

Now a couple of weeks later flying on Ed McNeff’s wing he had an experienced leader to show him the way.

As the pair crossed the channel on June 6th they arrived in their target area southwest of Paris.

When the different squadrons of the 355th spread out over France, one of the groups actually located a flight of German stukas that was headed to hit the boys on the beaches…

Ed and Thomas’s squadron however were in a different area and continued on to hit the targets on the ground.

Due to the heavy cloud cover they had to remain at a fairly low altitude so that they were able to maintain visibility of their targets.

And to start off this engagement chaos would strike: a single Focke-Wulf 190 would attempt to use the clouds to his advantage and dove out of the clouds and drilled the aircraft of the squadron leader Colonel William Cummings nearly shooting him down.

The skilled German pilot however, recognizing that he was outnumbered, immediately pulled back into the clouds before any of the other P-51s could even react.

It was a reminder of how quick the enemy could kill you and that they had to keep their eyes open for bandits at all times.

Shortly after this, underneath the thick clouds of June 6th their assigned targets were spotted: a train that was surely headed towards the coast.

Ed McNabb then turned and led Foster to attack.

As they made the passes on this target they unloaded their bombs and then their 50 calibers doing as much damage as possible.

But in this attack a mistake was made.

During one pass at the train below, Ed McNeff and Thomas Foster drifted too close together as they strafed the train.

The pair slowly lined up unintentionally and Ed McNeff leading the attack found himself right in the gun sight of Thomas Foster.

Trying to focus on the target, his attack, and his altitude, Foster could not react quickly enough to their error.

One of the 50 caliber rounds from his machine guns tore into the wing of his leader.

Ed McNeff instantly: a small hole was torn in the wing and a fire appeared…

My wingman was… we were strafing a train… and all of a sudden I felt this plunk in my wing and I looked out and I’ve got this fire like a blowtorch coming out from the top of the wing.

And I said no—it’s burning but I think it’s burning hydraulic fluid and it’s not spreading.

We’re going to take it up to 20,000 feet and have it go out—run out of oxygen up there to keep the fire going.

So I did that.

The fire eventually went out but I don’t have any brakes now, and so I landed at Manston…

Manston was a big grass field on the southeast coast of England where injured airplanes could land and roll out and it was a safe haven.

Fortunately Ed’s plan had worked: the low oxygen of the high altitude had suffocated the fire and although he lacked brakes he was able to get the plane back to England.

McNeff would land at RAF Manston, an airfield run by the Royal Air Force that was used for all sorts of emergency landings especially bombers and fighters that lacked brakes, as it boasted a long and open runway.

Although he was safe for now he had no idea of knowing that the combat relating to D-Day was just starting and that he was about to have an even worse time the following day.

Now as I was working hard to put together this story I actually uncovered something interesting: one single strange entry where he writes that he flew an RAF plane listed as an Oxford…

When I originally saw this I had no idea what it meant, in part because I didn’t even have a lot of the dates for many of these stories.

But putting the pieces together and finding out that the Oxford in 1944 was essentially a transport plane, I realized that this was likely Ed flying out of Manston back to Steeple Morden to rejoin his squadron.

After returning to his unit no time was wasted.

June 6 was now over but the battle for France was just starting.

When the sun came up on June 7th the 355th was assigned another mission, but now Ed needed a new plane.

His P-51B/K had been lost but fortunately a new one was already waiting.

This one however was a P-51D with improved visibility and two additional 50 caliber machine guns.

So without missing a beat Ed started his new engine and prepared to take off for the mission.

Now on D-Day plus 1 the troops on the ground were grouping up and starting to push inland.

This was without a doubt one of the most crucial times for low-level air support so appropriately once again, as we can see in Ed’s logbook, the mission would be dive bombing.

And hopefully this time it would go better than the day before.

His wingman again was Lieutenant Thomas Foster who was no doubt glad to have him back.

One can likely imagine that some laughs were had over the fact that he had essentially shot down his leader.

But after that the pair were back in the air and headed to hit the Germans once again.

Like the day before on June 7th the cloud cover was thick and the ceiling was low.

As the unit made it to the coast they were shortly in their target area where they spotted a convoy and an assortment of other targets on the ground.

McNeff radioed his flight and his wingman Thomas Foster to roll over and begin the attack.

As they had trained, they turned their aircraft and began the dive bombing run on a train below.

Ed and Thomas roared downward at the target below them—500 pound bombs armed and ready.

As the opportune moment approached Ed dropped his bomb on the train and he pulled up and looked behind him.

In this moment however he saw something that he never expected to see: inexplicably his wingman had rolled over and was headed towards the ground.

He quickly met the earth and burned, exploding on impact.

Unfortunately enough he and I were flying the next day… we were dive bombing 500 pound bombs… we were not very good at that… so I rolled in and went down… trying to bomb a train… I dropped my bombs and he didn’t.

He didn’t wait long enough and he came in behind me and I believe he got caught in the explosion of my bombs because he crashed right into the ground and that was that.

Apparently Lieutenant Foster was likely caught up in the explosion of either Ed’s bomb or his own, sending shrapnel into his plane and causing it to immediately roll over and go down.

According to one source this may have also been an ammunitions train, causing the explosion from their bombs to be even larger than normal and potentially explaining why he may have gotten caught up in the impact.

But regardless Thomas Foster went down and on June 7th of 1944 was killed in action.

To make matters worse another flight in Ed’s squadron was participating in this attack and was jumped by Focke-Wulf 190s from the clouds similar to the day before.

This time however two Mustangs were shot down immediately and a third disappeared into the clouds shortly after.

This would make June 7th of 1944 the worst day of the war for their squadron in terms of pilots lost.

It was a heavy mood no doubt after they eventually landed back at Steeple Morden.

But if anything positive could be taken from it, the Allies on the ground were winning and pushing deeper from the coast.

It looked like this was the beginning of the end.

Tragically in my research I also located something else that adds to the gravity and realism of these stories.

I attempted to look up the family records for Lieutenant Thomas Foster to see if I could locate any surviving family…

But here I was only able to find that Lieutenant Thomas J Foster appears to be the only son and had two parents who were also without siblings.

This meant that with the death of Thomas J Foster his family line came to an end, making this tragic loss even more dark.

But this is the cost of war sometimes.

In these large-scale conflicts we will find not only soldiers but entire families give everything to try and fight for what they believe in.

Thankfully we have the survivors like Ed McNeff to tell their stories and keep history alive.

As you guys can imagine the cost to fly out and interview these veterans as well as the fantastic commentary you see here is not cheap.

We need your support to keep doing this.

So right here as a bonus video to this one I will be posting an in-depth discussion of all of the research and archive hunting that I had to do to piece together this story.

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Comment what you guys think of heroes like Ed McNabb and Thomas Foster and I’ll see you next time.