During April, , the widow of John B. England, Mrs. This plane completed over 30 missions over the German Reich without an abort. It was nd code G4-H. He flew this one on his last 30 missions, and it was the last of the four.
His final mission was 15 January Available photos of it do not reveal any name on the left side — there are no photos of the right side. Victory symbols range from nine to twelve. It departed the U. It usually took from one to two weeks for the depot to process the aircraft that came in, so it probably was delivered to Leiston, and the th Fighter Group about the end of the first week of March.
England flew this first mission and four more through 8 March. We will deal with this question later. To complete our story on England was in Scotland on a gunnery course from 25 April until 14 May, and flew no missions. Bare metal fuselage sides and olive drab upper surfaces. It would arrive at Leiston in the full OD and gray scheme. Two photos from the England album show it with the original canopy and four victory symbols. One photo shows it with seven symbols.
He scored his 4th victory on 13 April. Two other photos, one taken by this author, show it with nine victory symbols, a Malcolm hood and full invasion stripes. He scored his 9th victory on 18 August, by which time he was no longer flying this aircraft, so the 9th symbol cannot be explained. In a letter dated 29 May , he says his aircraft was hit by machine gun fire in the aft fuselage. In a letter dated 2 June, he says he is thankful for armor glass and self-sealing tanks. Both comments may relate to the mission of 21 May, when nine aircraft were damaged during strafing attacks on an airfield.
During the time was under repair he would have flown whatever was available. By the first part of July, his new D model was on the scene. It finally met its final fate on 4 October, when the tail section separated during a high-speed training dive.
