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MIflyer,Everyone knows of the P-400 Airacobra I aircraft that were rejected by the RAF and were adopted by the USAAF and sent to the that Soloman Islands. I also read that some P-400's left in the U.K. were put into USAAF service and sent to North Africa. I have read very little about Airacobras in service in North Africa and was surprised when I found a copy of the December 1971 issue of Air Classics with an article by a former American RAF pilot who was a squadron commander with P-400's in the Med. It offers an interesting perspective on the Airacobra with some information I do not recall seeing elsewhere.
Here are the first two pages of that article. If it is appropriate I can post the rest of it.
View attachment 702233View attachment 702234
Well, it is their natural habitatIt appears the ground sucked them in.
Spun in while taxiing?Robert Davidson's P-400 was BX385. He had a taxing accident was on Jan.19, 1943.
In his superb book, Happy Jack's Go Buggy, Jack Ilfry describes landing his P-38 in Portugal when his drop tanks would not feed. Fortunately he managed to escape when the next day they took him back to his airplane and told him to start the engines so one of their pilots could fly it to a military field. He got the engines started as a Portuguese pilot kneeled on the wing and watched. Then another P-38 landed and there was a huge commotion as the authorities rushed to seize that airplane. Jack saw his chance and pushed the throttles forward, blew the pilot off the wing and took off. Arriving in North Africa, his commander naturally wanted to know where he had been for the last 24 hours. I would guess that the other P-38 pilot did not get to perform that same trick.Interesting are the landings in Portugal, en route to North Africa.
It's a P-400. Anything is possible.Spun in while taxiing?
This is one of the P-400's in the UK that was cleaned up and repainted for deployment to North Africa. Note the yellow surround on the insignia and that enormous drop tank.