African vehicles

[Tony Wheeler]

Sorry to disagree Lang, but these are not the 33 FG a/c you mention. As Richard says they're 57 FG a/c attached to DAF, hence the RAF fin stripes and red prop spinner. As part of DAF the 57 FG arrived in Tunisia after supporting Eighth Army at Alamein and across North Africa.

Nearmost a/c appears to be 65 FS. What looks like nose art is actually a squadron insignia - presumably required because the early 2-digit a/c code did not identify the Group or Squadron. As USAAF Groups increased in number they quickly adopted the RAF identification system (alphabetic squadron/aircraft code) and this was in use during Torch operations (although possibly not by all USAAF Groups involved).

That said, it's possible these a/c also wound up with the French eventually, as they seem to have received most of the Allies clapped out P40s! However in this photo they are still with 57 FG in Tunisia, and most of them probably went on to Sicily and Italy.

Interestingly many a/c around this time are seen with USAAF and RAF markings together, something which is commonly explained as an attempt to deceive the French. Personally I don't place much credence in this theory, I suspect it had more to do with Allied command structures during this period.

Concerning the Packard-Merlin - this was introduced in the P40F, and the a/c pictured is an early production P40F, identifiable by the short tail. These were found to have directional stability problems due to the increased torque, so the rear fuselage was extended approx 2' on all subsequent P40s produced. The long tail P40 can be identified by the rearward position of the fin relative to the tailplane, which remained in situ. They were introduced towards the end of the North African campaign, so there may be a few in the background of this 57 FG photo. Like most DAF squadrons they would have been operating a variety of P40 models by the time they reached Tunisia - quite possibly including a few earlier Allison engined models which made it through unscathed.