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The Spearhead Of American Intervention

Eagles Prey American Eagles Squadron 71 flying Mk Vb Spitfires down an Me-109 over northern France in 1941.

As the specter of war loomed larger in Europe, Colonel Sweeny and his nephews were not alone in envisioning the potential value of the pilot pool in the United States. The British government and the Canadians both became active in planning ways to use American pilots and airfields for training if the need should arise. The most important of these ventures revolved around an American artist, Clayton Knight.

Clayton Knight was rather an unlikely person to mastermind a huge pilot acquisition program. Born in 1891, he embarked early on a career in art. Living in New York in 1917, Knight had been much troubled by the war in Europe for some time. Because of his early interest in airplanes, both as machines and as art subjects, he developed a keen interest in flying and a great admiration for the Lafayette Escadrille. By the time Knight decided to join the air service, the United States had entered the war, so he was trained as an Army aviator. After completing a six-week course in primary flying at Austin, Texas, he went to Europe as part of the early contingent of American flyers. Subsequently posted with the British on the front in France, on 5 October 1918 he was wounded when shot down behind enemy lines and taken prisoner by the Germans. He was released at the end of the war.

Another method of getting into the RAF, not involving either the Sweeny or Knight organizations, was simply to join the British or Canadian armed forces and try to get into a flying assignment. -This was the least used method, but several Eagles did take this route. Those who reached the Eagle Squadrons in this way really did not join the British or Canadian forces in an effort to get into the RAF or the Eagles. They simply happened to have the opportunity and took it.

Another direct route into flying was to join the Royal Canadian Air Force with the hope of escaping instructor duty in Canada and eventually transferring into the RAF. The Empire Training Scheme created great demand for pilots to be instructors in the various countries of the British Commonwealth. These countries had to expand their own air forces, and they had been' put on notice that they might well have to train large numbers of RAF pilots. The Canadians looked to the United States as a source of additional instructors. Everywhere you went in Canada in 1940 there were Americans in Canadian uniforms . . . in fact, there were so many Texans that wags often referred to the RCAF as the Royal Canadian Air Force of Texas."

The basic ground rules were that the Americans would come to Canada as civilians, but some who went saw that doing so might give them a chance to fly with the RCAF. There were few openings for fighter pilots but many for pilots to ferry aircraft across the Atlantic to England. For those impatient Americans who did not know about the Clayton Knight Committee or Colonel Sweeny's program, joining the RCAF seemed like the best way to get into flying and the war. Those who did volunteer for the RCAF received the complete Canadian Officers Training Program and Basic Flight Training, and then had to fight for a fighter assignment, which a few were lucky enough to get. A distinction of the RCAF enlistees who became Eagles was that most of them went into the RAF as sergeant pilots rather than officers, although all of those who lived long enough managed eventually to get their commission.

The period from the middle to the end of September 1942 is blurred in the history of the Eagles. During that time, most of those who had decided to transfer to the US Army Air Force did so and those who had opted not to transfer moved on to other duties in the RAF.

By then also, many former Eagle Squadron pilots had joined other RAF units, either in England or in such places as Malta or the Far East, some had returned to the United States or Canada, a few were instructors at OTU, a number were prisoners of war, and, of course, a large number had been killed. There were a few, however, who transferred from the RAF to the American forces in the months that followed, and some who made the move as late as the latter part of 1943.

Most of the active members of the three Eagle Squadrons completed the transfer in September, however, and continued flying as members of the Fourth Fighter Group of the Eighth Air Force, at least for a few months. General Spaatz' initial plan for the Eagles had been to fragment the units and put Eagles into many American units to provide experienced combat pilots. Although he agreed to shelving this plan in order to facilitate a smooth transfer, shortly after the Eagles moved into the US Army Air Force such transfers were initiated. The three squadrons of the Fourth Fighter Group began to have fewer and fewer Eagles in their ranks, as illustrated by the fact that of the 81 aces in the Fourth, only 20 were Eagles.

The continual loss of Eagles and the arrival of new pilots from the United States rapidly changed the character of the three Fourth Group squadrons until, by the early part of 1943, they were much the same as any other American fighter squadrons. And the Eagle heritage, kept alive for a time by the initial transfer to the USAAF as basically homogeneous units, also was rapidly lost as the number of former Eagles in American units continued to decline.

A very large majority of the pilots who served in the Fourth Fighter Group were not Eagles, but the title is often erroneously given to the Fourth and all its members. There were very few Eagles in the Fourth by the end of 1943 and none at war's end. Some Eagles went on to illustrious careers after joining the American forces. The three RAF Eagle Squadrons had little in common during their tenure in Fighter Command.

Little changed on the surface for the former Eagles as they took their places as members of the Fourth Fighter Group. They still flew spitfires, although they now carried the US star rather than the circles of the RAF, and the ground crews and support officers were still RAF. They were led by Raymond Duke Woolley, their RAF Group Commander, they still flew from Debden, they lived in the same quarters, and they ate at the same mess. Their day-to-day lives were essentially unchanged; they might well have still been in the RAF. Two significant items did change, however. First, their pay nearly tripled and the food became better. Second, they wore American Air Force uniforms and their social relationship with the British people changed dramatically. They were no longer "our boys" who were flying in the RAF. Rather, they were "Yanks" and subject to whatever reception the British offered the rest of the ever increasing number of Americans in their midst.

Much has been made of many of the groups of men who have served in special circumstances and under special callings in war, and certainly the Eagles are no exception. In many ways, they are typical of young people the world over for whom a cause or an event catches the imagination, or generates the spark and circumstances that make a difference in their lives.

For the Eagles, they did not set any overall records for numbers of German aircraft destroyed by an RAF squadron, although they did lead Fighter Command in certain months, and they did form the nucleus of the Fourth Fighter Group, the highest-scoring American unit in the European Theater during World War II. They were not involved in the Battle of Britain as a group; only 7 individuals of the 244 Americans in the three units even flew in the Battle.

They were but a small portion of the Americans who volunteered to fly for the RAF during World War II, although the identification Eagle has often been applied to all the Americans in the RAF and, in some quarters, all those who served in the Fourth Fighter Group of the US Army Air Force. Duty in Number 71, 121, or 133 Squadron was sometimes by request and sometimes by luck, but the only Eagles are the pilots who were in those units.

At the same time, their history is not very different from that of a number of other RAF squadrons during the early days of World War II, nor are the exploits of their members such that they stand out. The Eagle squadrons stand out in the annals of military and aviation history because in many ways they were unique organizations.

As with so many significant events in history, circumstances played an important part in the Eagles' story; the young men who became Eagles found themselves in a unique situation. Since the first days of flight, young people have dreamed of being pilots and getting their hands on a "hot ship," be it the Sopwith Camel, the Spitfire, or the F-16. Aircraft are, after all, at the very high end of the technology scale, which helps to increase the motivation to be part of the elite group of flyers. But seldom have circumstances come together that could have made the realization of these men's dreams possible.

In normal times, most of the Eagles would have never had the opportunity to fly military aircraft, since almost all of them were either ineligible for entry into the US military pilot training program or had entered it and been eliminated. But times were not normal at the beginning of the 1940s. For this group of frustrated young men, willing to do about anything to get their hands on one of the hot aircraft of the day, there was a nation that had the airplanes and was desperate for pilots-Great Britain. There was also a recruiting system established for getting them into the RAF-the Clayton Knight Committee. Finally, the US government was, for the most part, willing to look the other way when the illegal recruiting was in progress. The Eagles were helped by what is a remarkable combination of circumstances by any measure.

But equally important was the nature of the individuals themselves. They were adventurous, absolutely consumed with flying, and willing to do about anything to fly the planes that the military had-nowhere else could they get behind the controls of the fastest aircraft available. With the US military option closed, the RAF became the logical alternative. Most Eagles also realized that the English had their backs to the wall and needed all the help they could get. For many, it was the desire to help that tipped the balance toward volunteering. But they could also foresee the United States entering the war and knew that if they did not act quickly the option of flying in combat might well disappear. In addition, a majority of them either understood before joining the RAF or saw after they became engaged in the war, that the British cause was worth dying for. They could have quit and gone home, but almost none did. They accepted the action they had taken and gave their all for it.

We should also remember that they were really volunteering for the unknown. They did not know what combat flying was all about or the full extent of the risk involved. Yet when the realities became apparent to them, they simply did what had to be done and took their chances. For many, in fact, it was that lure of combat, a venture into the unknown, that was part of the challenge of being a fighter pilot.

Most enjoyed walking down the streets of London and having the people look, the young ladies "ooh" and "ah," and the pub owners say "you don't pay for a drink in here, Yank!" And their scrapbooks abound with articles that appeared in their hometown newspapers extolling their actions against the Germans, praising their heroism. It has been thus with young men since time began. Flight and airplanes and a cause really motivated the Eagles.

When the circumstances, the people, and the nations involved are all put together, it is easy to realize that a group just like the Eagles will probably not be seen again in modern warfare. There will always be individuals ready to volunteer for causes just as the Eagles did, but it is unlikely that a situation like that the Eagles found themselves in will arise again. We should learn from history, however, and we can learn from the story of the RAF Eagle Squadrons. They volunteered to go fight in a war that was not their own; they stood up to be counted for the cause of freedom. Their story also demonstrates the power that flight has over individuals, for seldom in history has a group of men been so consumed by an aircraft - the Spitfire - and so willing to give up their way of life, their security, and, for nearly half, their freedom or even their lives in order to fly and fight in those hot ships. History is replete with examples of individuals who took risks and, in doing so, became examples for those who followed. The Eagles were such a group.

Philip D. Caine. . University Press of the Pacific, Honolulu, Hawaii. 2002.

American Volunteer Fighter Pilots in the RAF 1937-43 This book discusses those who volunteered for action with the RAF prior to the American declaration of war, and the subsequent arrival of the USAAF in Britain. Also covers the early operations of VIII Fighter Command. Includes images detailing aircraft an analysis of camouflage and markings, firsthand accounts and informative text and captions.

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