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Mirage III E C/n
574 and its basic armament panoply at the 4th FW. Generally
pilots on duty for this kind of work are rookies...
His volunteer posture is ideal to end the story of modern 4th
Fighter Wing created on 1st May 1944 at Alto airfield south of
Bastia, Corsica Island, with GC II/3 'Dauphiné' and II/5 'Lafayette'
under command of Commandant Arnaud. With their new P-47Ds these
Squadrons were placed under USAAF 57th Fighter Group at Alto and
participated to help Allied troops, including French, in their
progression on the Italian soil. On 16th June 1944, GC II/5, four
years after retreat in North Africa, did its first mission over
South France with 57th FG, a sweep over Languedoc coasts, this
because the US Command wanted that the La Fayette name continues
an almost two century love affair between France and America:
General La Fayette went to help America in 1787 for its
Independence, American Volunteers in 1916 went in France and
anime 'Escadrille La Fayette' to fight the Huns and USAAF had set
up again and firstly French 'La Fayette' Squadron' to associate
it, in a common spirit of Fight for Victory, to the first
operation for France's Reconquest. And, from here, II/3 and II/5
daily operated from Corsica, next from Ambérieu since 7
September 1944 ( a third squadron GC III/3 'Ardennes' was added
to 4th FW on 31 October 1944 ), Luxeuil from 2 January 1945 to
fight Germans on French soil and in the air before to fight them
inside Germany.
When war ended the three Squadrons had performed 10,000 sorties,
got 41 kills, used 4,500 metric tons of bombs and lost many
pilots whose Commandant Arnaud on 12 September 1944 (not far from
my family city of Belfort), with its P-47 of which I preserve a
piece of windscreen and two bullets.
Curiously, in all the official records I have seen in the past,
the place where he was killed by flack action is completely wrong
and my father, as a guess, saw the whole P-47 attack, until a few
seconds before it was shot-down by flack guns located at a hidden
point for father. Cdt Arnaud's wingman circled about 10 minutes,
possibly out of ammunitions ( before they had straffed
locomotives and other target of opportunities between Altkirch
and the Rhine ); either he had not participated to the attack
with his Wing Commander due to this, or remained out of the
action to survey sky and begin to counter an always possible
attack from Luftwaffe Fw-190s or Bf-109s. When hit, Arnaud had
time to bail-out from Thunderbolt which, halas, was already
almost at tree top level in the forest located around the flack
position. His very partially opened chute prevented Germans to
spot the point where he hit ground, very near from crashed
aircraft, and this permitted almost immediately to Partisans to
find him and substract the body at nose and beard of searching
troops. Later, Cdt Arnaud was inhumated at the well known Mont
Valérien Monument near Paris honouring a limited number of
Liberation Companions of Free French Forces dead in action.
With Peace, 4th FW installed near Koblentz in Germany having
restricted activity with fifty to sixty Thunderbolts and lost its
'Ardennes' GC III/3 squadron which disbanded on 1st April 1946.
Early 1947, a part of pilots transformed on Spitfire IXs while on
1st July of the same year, the Armée de l'Air Staff decided to
clear squadron numerotation. GC II/3 'Dauphiné' and GC II/5 ' La
Fayette' respectively became GC I and II/4 with same associated
names. All was right to embark 4th FW for Indochina where they
had to replace 2nd FW ending an operation tour entamed since
August 1946. This was done on 17 August and the Wing began to
operate with Spitfires let by 2nd FW from October, squadrons
being sent in separate sectors: I/4 at Na-Trang, II/4 at Tan-Son-Nhut
and from here operated by detachments on various Indochina
airfields. In October 1948, replaced by 3th Wing which continued
with Spitfires used by 4th, this latter totalled more than 8,500
war hours flown over 8,000 missions.
Early 1949, the Wing took again its Thunderbolts operated in the
meantime by 2nd FW pilots. From Koblentz, 4th FW move to
Friedrichshafen base to rather train while mechanics and
successive batch of pilots went to Mont-de-Marsan to transform on
Vampire I jets before coming back to Friedrichshafen were Mk 5s
arrived on 2 November 1949.
1950 began with Groupe de Chasse (GC) transforming in Escadron de
Chasse (EC), their numerotation deleting Roman ciphers and 4h FW
gained two squadrons : the EC 3/4 'Flandre' and EC 4/4 'Ardennes'
which lasted 9 months, as seen with comment about the Ouragan
picture, while Vampire 5s were used more than four years by 4th
Wing.
From March 1954 to July 1954 pilots transformed to MD-450
Ouragans with which they operated from their new base of
Bremgarten, the 60 aircraft,squadron by squadron, taking the
place of Vampires. The interception primary mission of 4th Wing
came to an end when in May 1957 first Thunderstreaks in turn
replaced Ouragans to assume fighter bombing inside NATO units. As
seen, EC 3/4 Flandre was dissolved, the 'Fourth' remaining with
the two squadrons 'Dauphiné and 'La Fayette'. The unit, between May 1957 and June 1967 flew over 1000,000
flight hours with F-84F, its main mission being then fighter-bombing.
In June 1961 occured a Base exchange with 11th Fighter Wing and
its F-100s coming to Bremgarten and so operate from Germany with
a nuclear tactical strike assignation in the OTAN order of battle
while Thunderstreaks of 4th FW established to present Luxeuil air base in France where
the wing received its first uncamouflaged Mirage III Es from
October 1966 and acquired a status of nuclear tactical strike
wing during 1972.
