353rd Fighter Group
HISTORY OF THE 353RD FIGHTER GROUP
The veteran 353rd Fighter Group, highest scoring group in the 66th Fighter Wing, has completed almost two years of operations with the Eighth Air Force in the ETO with scores of records and outstanding achievements.
Activated at Richmond, Va., on 1 October 1942, under Major Joseph A. Morris, the 353rd landed in Britain on 7 June 1943. Operational since 12 August 1943, the 353rd moved to our present base on 14 April 1944. Equipped with Thunderbolts from 10 June 1943 until October 1944. we completed the war with Mustangs.
We were led into battle by Lt.-Col. Morris, now missing in action. Lt.-Col. Loren G.~ McCollom succeeded him until he was hit by anti-aircraft fire on one of our early dive-bombing missions. Colonel Glenn E. Duncan took over and was leading Ace of Aces for the ETO, with 27 enemy aircraft destroyed, until he was forced down behind German lines. Colonel Ben Rimerman became group commander and remained with us until Colonel Duncan?s return in April of this year.
The history of the 353rd might almost be two separate stories the exciting days of the Thunderbolts and the equally thrilling reign of the Mustangs.
Always the first job was to run interference for the bomber boys but the aggressive spirit of attack was keenest when the 353rd went out and looked for trouble. The predominant thought was to hit the Nazis the hardest where it hurt the most. The objective: ground targets.

In the early part of 1944 the 353rd was the hottest group in the Eighth Air Force. Under the leadership of Colonel Glenn E. Duncan of Houston, Texas, who pioneered the dive-bombing technique of Thunderbolts, the group struck again and again at German airfields, communications, transportation, military installations, and innumerable other targets.
It was the result of experiments by Colonel Duncan together with Major Walter C. Beckham and the success of the 353rd which led to the formation of the unique squadron of specialists called ?The Buzz Boys.? Fighter pilots of the 66th Fighter Wing, including five from the 353rd, volunteered to form a squadron of highly-trained flyers, experts in the devastating art of strafing. For a month ?The Buzz Boys? operated on their ?offensive patrols? skilfully and effectively.
The 353rd continued the work of ?The Buzz Boys.? For the Week following D-Day, 876 sorties were flown behind enemy front line defenses and 263 tons of bombs were dropped: enemy aircraft, both on the ground and in the air, locomotives, rail-road cars, and trucks were destroyed. Thousand-pounders were slammed into the mouths of five important railway tunnels and two bridges and six marshalling yards were hit.
In the two months following D-Day, the 353rd flew more than 2,100 dive-bombing sorties dispensing over 700 tons of bombs.
It was in July that Colonel Duncan, holder of the D.S.C. and Silver Star, and the first man to fly a Thunderbolt over Berlin, was shot down by small-arms fire. Colonel Rimerman assumed command of the group and remained its leader until Colonel Duncan finally returned after having eluded the Nazis for over nine months.
Under Colonel Rimerman the 353rd continued its train-busting tactics. In August and September, within 53 days, the group wrecked 414 locomotives, of which 331 were totally destroyed. Altogether the 353rd has accounted for more than a thousand locos, 790 of these listed as destroyed.
The group was awarded the Distinguished Unit Citation for six days of support for Allied airborne troops in Holland and battle damage was heavy in this most dangerous game. One pilot bellied-in two days in a row; another pilot crash-landed twice and bailed out on another occasion; a third came back with his plane so covered with its own oil that the markings on the aircraft could not be read; one brought home wires with part of a telephone pole; another pilot landed with part of his engine shot away; and yet another ran through a tree. At one time, five pilots went down in German-occupied Europe within a month, and all of them returned to the group within a week of each other.
And the impressive power of the 353rd continued after the change to Mustangs. The best day of the group?s history in aerial combat was 24 March 1945, when twenty- seven enemy aircraft were destroyed and the best day of strafing was recorded on 16 April 1945, when 119 aircraft were totally destroyed on the ground. The group?s score of 350 enemy aircraft destroyed, 39 probables and 183 damaged (198-29-99 of these in the air) with Thunderbolts was increased to the final tally of 738 aircraft of the Luftwaffe destroyed, 317 of these on the ground.

ACES

THREE-FIFTY-THIRD FIGHTER GROUP


Headquarters Fighter Squadron

Col. Glenn E. Duncan, Col. Ben Rimerman, Lt.-CoI. Wayne K. Blickenstaff.


350 Fighter Squadron


Capt. William F. Tanner, Lt.-Col. Kenneth W. Gallup, Lt. Swift Benjamin, Maj. William J. PriceiCapt. Vernon Rafferty, Capt. Marvin Bledsoe, Lt. Bayard Auchincloss, Capt. Melville W. Hightshoe, Maj. Walker L. Boone, Lt.-Col. Robert A. Elder, Capt. Robert W~ Abernathy.


351 Fighter Squadron


Maj. Walter Beckam, Maj. Gordon B. Compton, Capt. William Maguire, Capt. Lloyd G. Hally, Capt. Gene E. Markham, Capt. Raymond E. Hartley


352 Fighter Squadron


Capt. Jessie W. Gonnam, Maj. James N. Poindexter, Lt. Robert A. Newman, Capt. Clifford F. Armstrong,Capt. William J. Jordan, Capt. Leslie P. des, Lt. Harold 0. Miller, Lt. Ray Greenwood, Lt. Edwin Reinhardt, Lt. Thomas Jones, Capt. Harrison B. Tordoff, Capt. Horace Q. Waggoner, Capt. Arthur C. Cundy.