History of the 348th Fighter Group

341st in Providence Rhode Island during training: Left to Right
Jules Brausseur, James Rea, William Doyal and "Nick" might be James Nixon
In other information my Dad noted that Doyal was killed when his plane flipped over.
341

 

The following photos are of Aviation Cadets with Class 42-I. These photos where taken after completion of Primary Flight Training which they completed in March 1942. If all of these young men made it through the Aviation Cadet Training program they would have graduated from Advance Flight School in October of 1942 and become rated pilots in the Army Air Force, most, if not all, with the rank of 2nd Lieutenant. This class, 42-I, took their training at Coleman field in Coleman Texas.

 

This is the roster of all the Aviation Cadets that graduated from class 42-I at Foster Field, Victoria Texas. From here they went on to various Operational Training Units to become proficient in the type of aircraft they were to pilot. In the case of the 348th fighter Group they trained in the P-47 Thunderbolt.

 

Some photos from my Dad's album that you might like

 

Some More Photos. The first two are of my Dad Clarence Blend and his plane "Battlin Beaut." In the second photo and below the nose cowling are my Dad on the left and his crew chief on the right his last name was Deing I believe.

 

Photos continued

 

a few more

 

And a few more photos. Rumor has it that the 341st F.S. were big gamblers so I threw in a couple pictures that may verify that. A shot of the 341st Commanding Officer David Campbell and the next C.O. Sam Blair. Also a couple of very young men probably on Wadke Island - date unknown.

 

Thought you might like these, I'm sure other's will too, eventually anyway. What I find interesting about the photos of Merle and my Dad is that they don't appear to be snapshots, they look professionally done. I know that there were many journalist roaming the battle fronts and often wrote articles for newspapers and magazines back home. I feel like these two photos and the squadron photo were products of these journalist. Also, I have seen many pictures on the WEB of my Dads plane "Battlin Beaut" but none of those photos are in his collection, I suspect the same is true with those. Merle's photo and my Dad's photo are the only two he has like this, it's to bad there are not more like these. I'm going to try and post two photos that that show what I mean about the journalist. hopefully you see these after this post.

 

Lieutenant Clarence "Herk" Blend of Milwaukee, Wisconsin, smiles as he poses next to a bulletin board, "Latest Flashes - News" that is hanging on the side of a building. He was the pilot of a Republic P-47 Thunderbolt that shot down a "Tony" (an Italian-designed Japanese fighter aircraft) while escorting several Consolidated B-24 Liberator aircraft over Wewak, New Guinea (present day Papua New Guinea), the previous day……December 2, 1943 Robert Doyle of the Milwaukee Journal

 

This photo is of James Rea and Gary Gove Jules Brausseur wrote the note to my Dad in 2001.