This page is dedicated to the brave pilots of the 56th Fighter Group.

May we never forget the sacrifices you made in the name of liberty.

Thank you for taking an interest in the history of the original W.W.II 56th Fighter Group. The 56th was part of the 8th US Army Air Corps. Before we begin let me take a minute to tell you what a fighter group actually is. A fighter group was three fighter squadrons plus additional maintenance and headquarters functions and was commanded by a Colonel. In the 8th Airforce squadrons did not operate independently. All three squadrons were based at the same airfield and operated within the group.A fighter squadron was a unit staffed to operate independently and usually contained about 250 personnel. There were about 27 flying officers, a half dozen ground officers, and 25 aircraft. The CO, always a flying officer, was a TLC. A mission was usually done with 16 aircraft flying as 4 flights of 4 aircraft each. The three squadrons that made up the 56th were the 61st, 62nd, and 63rd Fighter Squadrons.

The 56th was known  as "Zemke's Wolfpack." Most Fighter Group Commanders were young and under thirty years old. They carried immense responsibility. Not only were they the combat leader of the fighter group, they also commanded the Service Group, indeed they commanded the entire airbase. In the U.S. Air force today these same functions are commanded by a Brigadier General.  Col. Zemke, CO of the 56th Fighter. Group. was 28, his successor at the 56th was Col. Schilling, 26 years old. Squadron commanders were about 24 years old on average. Flight commanders and other flying officers were as young as twenty .

During W.W.II the 56th was stationed in the European Theater. From July 8th 1943 to April 18th 1944 they were stationed at Halesworth. On April 18th 1944 they were transferred to Boxted where they remained until September 9th 1945. The pilots of the 56th were the first to be assigned the P-47 Thunderbolt. The biggest, fastest, and most destructive fighter the US had during W.W.II. The 56th Fighter Group, the "Wolfpack," was credited with 665 air-to-air victories, leading all fighter groups in the European Theater of Operations. Zemke alone had 17.75 confirmed victories in 154 combat missions, putting him in the top 25 of all Army Air Forces World War II fighter pilots. He once said that if he had been a better shot, he would have had twice as many. The highest scoring Ace of the 56th was Francis Gabreski with 28 victories.

Lieutenant Colonel Francis S. Gabreski of the 61st Squadron, 56th Fighter Group in his Republic P-47D Thunderbolt,42-26418. Shooting down a total of  28 German aircraft,    and destroyed three more on the ground. Major Richard Bong of the Army Air Forces, the first pilot to break Rickenbacker's mark, was the leading  American ace of the entire war, downing 40 Japanese planes. Gabreski was the leading American ace in Europe.The XP-47B first flew on May 6,1941, achieving a top speed of 412 mph and resulting in an immediate order of the P-47B by the USAAF. By November 1942, the three squadrons of the 56th Fighter Group were operational, equipped with P-47Bs. These squadrons joined the Eighth Air Force in England in January 1943. The Thunderbolts flew their first mission on April 8,1943, providing escort for B-17s.

The Duties of the 56th were to give air support to the bombers. Col. Zemke, a superb tactician, originated The Zemke Fan and other tactical innovations. The Zemke Fan drastically changed Eighth Air Force policy that had required escorting fighters to stay with the bombers at all times. Colonel Zemke was convinced that if some fighters fanned out well ahead of the bombers, many enemy fighters could be shot down as they were forming up to attack the bomber stream. Lt. Gen. William E. Kepner, who headed VIII Fighter Command, bought the idea. Bomber losses declined significantly as fighter victories increased.

The Zemke Fan was first tried on May 12, 1944. On that mission, Hub Zemke's element lost one of its four P-47s to an abort. The remaining three were attacked by seven Messerschmitt BF-109s. Zemke immediately ordered them to form a Lufbery circle. The Luftwaffe leader cut across the circle and, in a dazzling display of deflection shooting, downed one P-47. A few moments later, he repeated his performance, leaving Zemke alone in an unfriendly sky. With no recourse, Zemke went into a barrel-rolling vertical dive at full throttle and escaped. (Years later, he learned that the German sharpshooter was Maj. Günther Rall, the Luftwaffe's third-ranking ace with 275 victories.)

In August 1944, after commanding the 56th FG for two years, Zemke volunteered to take over the 479th Fighter Group, equipped with P-38 Lightning's but about to convert to P-51 Mustangs. The 479th's record had not been good. Zemke soon restored the group's morale while earning three more victories himself. However on his last mission he ran into the worst turbulence he had ever encountered. He ordered his formation to turn back, but before he could do so, his P-51 lost a wing. Parachuting from the wreckage, Zemke was soon taken prisoner and ended up in Stalag Luft I at Barth, Germany, on the Baltic Sea.

Protecting Flying Fortress bombers on their missions deep into Germany in a P-47 Thunderbolt fighters,Robert Johnson was the second World War II fighter pilot to break the U.S. record of 26 air "victories" set by Capt. Eddie Rickenbacker in World War I. He accomplished that feat when he knocked down two Luftwaffe fighters near Brunswick, Germany on his final mission, May 8, 1944 

The P-47 republic "Thunderbolt" played a major roll in the 56th FG as well as in the war, its primary targets included railroad stations and convoys.It was classified as a single seat fighter bomber.This aircraft was one of the best ground support aircraft of the war.This aircraft was also a good as a  high altitude fighter, after changes were made using a paddle blade propeller.Hopefully someday    the 56thFG will be able to conquer the skies of  Fighter Ace with this aircraft.