From some 80 years ago this month comes this amazingly detailed and vibrant period Kodachrome.
Original Caption: “Armament men must exercise extreme caution in loading .50 cal. machine guns of a plane. 8th AF. Extreme caution must be exercised in loading .50 cal. machine guns of a P-47 fighter. It may mean the life of the pilot of another victory. These men are experts as you can see by the number of Jerries shot down by the pilot of the plane who is none other than Lt. Col. Francis Stanley “Gabby” Gabreski, Oil City, Pa., leading ace in the ETO, with 28 planes to his credit. Left to right: Sgt. John A. Koval, Rochester, NY, and Sgt. Joe Di Franza, East Boston, Mass.”
8th AF Photo K 2618, rec’d September 1944 (but taken in July 1944) from BFR, Filed War Theatre #12– England– Armarment and Gunnery. National Archives Identifier 325596069. Local ID: 342-C-K-2618
If you look at the loading door, there is a belt loading diagram. Of note, the P-47 could carry as many as 425 rounds per gun, with eight .50 cals, giving it a “throw” of some 3,400 rounds, which was tremendous compared to other U.S. fighters (1,840 rounds for the 6-gunned P-51 Mustang and 2,400 for the similarly armed F4U Corsair.) Also note that rather than a mix of tracers and other ammo, the belts all seem to hold standard M8 “silver tipped” armor-piercing incendiary (API) ammo belts ammo, which means this could just be a publicity shot and not a real “war load.”
Take count of “Gabby’s” scorecard, at the time, of 28 Nassi victories, dating the image to around July 5/6 1944.
Born in Franciszek Stanisław Gabryszewski in 1919 to immigrants from Frampol, Poland, Gabreski went through the USAAF’s Aviation Cadet program while at Notre Dame in 1940, and by late 1941 he was a 2nd LT in the 45th Pursuit Squadron of the 15th Pursuit Group at Wheeler Army Airfield, Hawaii, where he tried unsuccessfully to engage the Japanese on 7 December from behind the controls of an obsolete P-36 Hawk. Volunteering to work as a liaison with the Free Polish pilots of the RAF in England, Capt Gabreski was flying Spitfire Mark IXs with No. 315 (Dęblin) Squadron by January 1943 before he was tapped to lead the new 61st Fighter Squadron that summer, flying the P-47.
And the rest, as they say, is history, putting in 300 flying hours with the Eight Air Force on 166 combat sorties logged in just over 13 months and was officially credited by the USAAF with 28 aircraft destroyed in air combat and 3 on the ground between 24 August 1943 and 5 July 1944, making the 25-year-old the leading American ace at the time.
Lt. Col. Gabreski was shot down on 20 July 1944, spending the rest of the war with 9,000 other Allied airmen at Stalag Luft I in Western Pomerania, liberated in April 1945 by the Soviet Red Army.
Post-war, he chopped over to the newly formed USAF, while at the controls of an F-86 shot down 6.5 MiG-15s in Korea for 123 combat missions, totaling 289 for his career with 34.5 “kills.”
Gabreski retired on November 1, 1967, at the time commander of a wing of F-101 Voodoos. When he left the military, he had over 5,000 flying hours.
He earned the DSC, DSM, Legion of Merit, 2 Silver Stars, 13 DFCs, a Bronze Star, and 7 Air Medals. He passed in 2002, aged 83.