Description
V, Capt. Richard A Pete Peterson, 364th Fighter Squadron, 357th Fighter Group, Leiston, Suffolk July 1944. The red and yellow checked noses of the USAAF 357th Fighter Group became a familiar sight in the skies above enemy occupied Europe in the ƒÂ¯ nal months of WWII and served both to reassure US Bomber crews that their 'Little Friends were in attendance and to warn attacking Luftwaffe ƒÂ¯ ghters that they were facing an elite ƒÂ¯ ghting unit. The 357th were the ƒÂ¯ rst Eighth Air Force Fighter Group to receive the new North American P-51 Mustang towards the end of 1943 and immediately began their conversion training at Raydon airƒÂ¯ eld in East Anglia. Transferring to nearby Leiston, the unit became operational in February 1944 and were famously christened 'The Yoxford Boys by British traitor and German propagandist Lord Haw-Haw, who greeted the arrival of these newly trained pilots with a forewarning of death and devastation at the hands of the Luftwaffe ƒÂ¢¢â?¬Å¡ ¬¢â?¬Â?“ how wrong he was. The Mustangs of the Yoxford Boys took a withering toll of Axis aircraft in the coming months, becoming the most successful P-51 air-to-air combat Unit in the Eighth Air Force by the end of WWII.
