Captain Leroy Grossheusch's P-47D, 39th Fighter Squadron, 35th Fighter Group, 5th USAAF

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Here is my latest drawing depiciting the P-47D of Captain Leroy Grossheusch, commanding officer of the 39th Fighter Squadron, 35th Fighter Group, 5th Air Force. I'd like to point out that this photo doesn't do the original justice at all! I'll blame my poor photography. The actual drawing is wonderfully crisp in its clarity, not to mention, highly detailed.

A friend in the United States who loves P-47s asked me to create a drawing - and what made it extra cool - was the fact I was free to choose any unit I wished.

Not often seeing the 5th Air Force represented with the 'Jug', I opted for a rather fetching unpainted,(so it was bare aluminium)P-47D Razorback. The cowl wore a pale blue band, and just below the cockpit were two diagonal fuselage stripes. There were 3 black bands (similar to European 'Invasion Stripes') to the top and lower surfaces of the wings aswell as two black fuselage bands (Nick, a good friend of mine and aficionado of U.S. insignia, informed me that these were added to aircraft after the invasion of the Philippines). The rudder wore red, white and blue stripes, as per pre-war U.S. aircraft.


Captain Leroy Grossheusch and crew chief (Photo for discussion purposes only; source:internet site).

This particular aircraft was in use at Luzon around February of 1945. I had no clear photo of the airstrip here, but on viewing other airfields in the South West Pacific Theatre, many were lined with thick undergrowth and palm trees. I wanted to make it clear this P-47 was not in Europe, so decided to use palm trees as my back drop; if in fact there weren't any lining the Luzon strip, perhaps Grossheusch had landed at another nearby........

My research threw up conflicting information regarding Grossheusch's kills. I've seen some sources say 8, while others mention 7. He flew several Thunderbolts, but I believe my drawing depicts the one in which he scored 6 of his kills. Later this fighter group converted to the North American P-51 Mustang and I believe Grossheusch scored a kill in a '51 (2 days before the Pacific War ended) when he downed a Nakajima K-84 Hayate (allied codename: 'Frank').