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Maj. Jordan commanded the Flying Knights (9th Squadron) when they fought their way to the highest squadron score in the FEAF with a total of 271 enemy aircraft. He had a personal score of 6 Nips before his return to the US. Distinguished Flying Cross and Air Medal with 5 Clusters.

MAJOR WALLACE R. JORDAN
9th FIGHTER SQUADRON
49th FIGHTER GROUP
P-38

Primarily, one principle which underlies the successful application of all the following fighter to fighter combat tactics with the Japanese is the neutralization of the excellent maneuverability of his airplane. In my experience, maneuverability is the only quality in which the Nip excels, and when allowed, he will use it to its fullest extent. The neutralization is effected simply by fighting in a manner that does not allow him to use his maneuverability.

Individual defensive tactics.

First, do not attempt to dog-fight. If you do, your chances are minimized by allowing the Nip to use maneuverability.

When enemy contact is imminent, i.e., over a target, maintain an IAS of at least 250 MPH. From this speed, increased settings will quickly give you the necessary high speed when needed.

Upon being attacked several things can be done according to the type of attack. If seriously outnumbered, and attacked from above, establish a shallow dive at War Emergency setting until out of danger. If attacked from below, use a high speed shallow climb. The Nip climbs more vertically and cannot stay with you in this type climb.

If attacked by a single enemy, allow him to commit himself in his pass; turn sharply in and under at the critical moment. A great many times you will be able to get a short head-on shot in this situation. Maintain this turn through the shortest possible period; get out far enough to regain altitude and return offensively.

Recently, with the use of the dive flaps and aileron boost on the L series P-38, the following defensive maneuver has been very successful. Split "S", roll 1800 while going straight down, and pull out, This maneuver was used by a pilot in the squadron at 3000 feet altitude. Low, it should be used only as a last resort, since it allows the Nip to use his maneuverability if he so desires and is good enough to follow. High, it can be used to better advantage, since you will be able to hold straight down after the 1800 straight down roll, building up excessive speed to where the attacker cannot stay with you. This maneuver and the normal split "S" should not be used unless absolutely necessary, because the consequent loss of altitude is to your general disadvantage.

At any time, your best individual defensive action is to rejoin another friendly airplane and use the teamwork of the two ship element for your mutual protection.

Individual offensive tactics.

When individually attacking an enemy fighter, use the speed necessary to prevent over-running, come from sun or cloud cover, and do not fire until minimum range is reached unless the enemy aircraft starts evasive action before that time. With premature firing, your ammo is wasted by your tracers prompting the Nip to evasive action that you cannot possibly follow. The best pass, If you can get set for it, is to come in directly behind and slightly low. From this position, you can close to minimum range, pull up to level altitude with the Nip and destroy him before he realizes you are there.

The majority of Nip pilots dislike the head-on pass and will not press it to minimum. If one does, your superior fire-power will give you a distinct advantage.

If attacking superior numbers, pick the most vulnerable target, make a straight pass with plenty of speed, and keep on going. In this instance, if you turn more than 450, you will usually be immediately and seriously on the defensive.

The evasive maneuvers favored by the Nip are split "S", Immelmans, tight loops, steep diving turns and chandelles. I have seen the double Immelman used occasionally. The Nip does this difficult maneuver with amazing ease. Most of these turns will be made to the left. Usually they are executed so quickly and the radii of the turns so short that you cannot follow. Bide your time, keep altitude, and make another pass. If you try to follow, the tight loop or a reversal from any of the Nip's tight turns can easily put him on your tail.

If you anticipate fighting the Nip, be especially proficient in deflection shooting, because the majority of your shots will be that type.

Squadron defensive tactics.

The squadron formation both offensive and defensive is based upon and expands from the two ship element.

The flights are four ship, consisting of two two-ship elements. Within the flight, the wing man of the flight leader and the element fly wide, almost abreast on opposite sides of the flight leader. The wing man crosses under and the second element over. As much of the time as is possible, the second element is flown high with the first element between the second and the sun. This makes for easier handling of attacks from the sun. Close checking upon element leaders is sometimes necessary to see that this is done, since some may thoughtlessly fly the more comfortable sunward side.

The squadron formation, if each flight is considered as a single airplane, looks relatively the same as a flight when viewed from above. There is an average depth, stepped up from the lead flight, of 1000 feet. These positions afford maximum visibility, flexibility, and ease to hold. From them, maximum fire-power can quickly be brought to bear on an attack from any direction. We insist upon close show formation around home base before and after missions. This increases alertness of the pilots for all formation flying.

In instances where it is impossible to get away otherwise, flights or elements who are outnumbered and cannot fire, out of ammo etc. can usually force the Nip to break off by making bluff passes. This has been done successfully a number of times. Recently Lt. Helterline, out of ammo, made bluff passes on three Nips who were attacking an airplane on single engine. They broke off and the single engine returned safely.

Upon completion of a fight, squadron formation must be resumed as quickly as possible in order to conserve gas and to protect any cripples.

Squadron offensive tactics.

When we are offensive to start, we strive to maintain the flight formation, but do not insist upon it, since keeping a flight together in the general melee of a fight is very difficult. We do however, insist that the wingman stay in and keep the two ship element intact. There will be a few instances where even this will not be possible. If a break up of two ship elements occurs, the singles must rejoin another friendly fighter as soon as possible, and where possible, elements rejoin to form flights.

When an enemy formation is sighted, the squadron or flight leader immediately calls in the clock position of enemy aircraft and if they are higher, attains altitude necessary to attack. At this time the flights must space themselves far enough to avoid following the leader's flight too closely, thus having time to pick a good target, make an effective pass, and avoid collisions with enemy or friendly aircraft.

Once the initial pass has been made and the enemy formation has been dispersed, it is the job of the various two ship elements to mop up the remaining Nips. Pilots must be indoctrinated to restrain their eagerness to shoot where several are trying to get in a pass. If they all press in at once, none will get a shot and collisions will be imminent. If two or more are attacking (this applies especially where there are several trying to get one Nip) the formation should spread very wide and allow one man to attack. If this is done, the Nip's evasive move will usually carry him within range of another member of the formation. Another aspect of this case is concerned with hot guns and the resultant swirling of rounds therefrom. After any amount of sustained shooting, your guns need at least ten minutes of cooling. If they are not given this cooling, the rounds will swirl, go in every direction and you will hit nothing. When the swirl is observed, pull off and allow someone else to take over the attack until your guns have returned to normal. Actually, your guns won't get the chance to overheat if you coordinate properly with the rest of the flight or element, because the target's evasive actions will change his attacker frequently. Recently we had a Nip get away from a flight of six P-38 is simply because all members, thinking of their own personal score of course, shot at once, got in each other's way, and at tae end couldn't hit anything with overheated guns.

Intelligence Officers must continually brie pilots as to enemy order of battle, types likely to be encountered, and all information concerning them, mainly speeds, because they are necessary to compute lead in the oft-encountered deflection shot.

Long-Reach.

All the foregoing information applies fundamentally to the tactics of long-reach. The differences will occur in the formation to and from the target. We use 1600 RPM and the necessary manifold pressure setting to maintain 185 MPH IAS which is the computed most efficient airspeed for minimum fuel consumption where the airplane carries two external tanks. The speed without external tanks is 175 MPH. These figures were given us by Charles Lindbergh and, since we have no other source of information, we have taken them to be correct. Actually, we have never had to cut the IAS back that far on return. Without external tanks, 24x inches and 1600 RPM will give an IAS of 200 MPH at 10,000 feet.

In order to reduce drag, the external tanks are burned out separately and dropped when empty. Most airplanes will give two hours or slightly better with a climb included. If the mission is not over 800 miles, the second tank will last to the target plus fifteen minutes. The last fifteen minutes are at high settings since you are over the target, so we assume that we could probably reach 900 miles on the external wingtanks.

The accomplishment of long radius of action, over 800 miles, is based upon the following: Use of eight ship section which I will explain in the next paragraph, no interception enroute, as advanced rendezvous point, and good weather. An advance fighter sweep is not essential, but is preferable.

On a mission where the radius is over 800 miles, we split the squadron and go on course as eight ship sections which take off and go on course immediately. Tile leader will make a turn of not more than 1800 after take off, assembling loosely and going on course without waiting for the second eight. A squadron assembly over the field and maintenance of it to the rendezvous will result in the use of too much fuel. Obviously, this condition prevails only where one strip suitable to take off one airplane at a time is available; for example, Morotai during the Borneo missions. With proper on-the-ball assembly, a full squadron can perform the mission, but would have a very small fighting and weather reserve.

At low settings, the changes in speed of the airplane are very sluggish. Increase of manifold pressure at the excessively low RPM has very little effect upon increasing the speed of the airplane. How ever, increase of RPM to the necessary amount has the desired effect. For this reason, all pilots use RPM to maintain formation on the longer missions.

The type of formation flown is identical to normal combat type except that it is flown much more loosely. This prevents jockeying of settings and consequent use of extra fuel. The formation is not so loosely flown that aircraft are outside supporting distance of one another.

These are fighter tactics as we know and use them. Having only recently become a full P-38 group, our squadron tactics may change somewhat to accommodate operations where the group f lies as a unit. However we de not anticipate any important fundamental change.

2nd Lt. Ernest J. Ambort has an enviable record. Joined the 9th Sq. in October '44, and aced out on 5 December with his 4th and 5th Nip.

Major W. C. Drier, CO of the 8th demonstrated teamwork when he and Maj. Aschenbrenner downed 7 of 8 Nips over Leyte. His total is 10.

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