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THE BOMBING RESULTS OF THE 56TH FIGHTER GROUP
When the Eighth Air Force resumed deep penetration bombing missions between October 2 and October 14, the 56th FG shot down 37 Germans while losing just one Thunderbolt. Its radius of action had been considerably augmented on August 31 by the installation of new belly drop tank shackles on its P-47s that permitted use of 75-gallon steel drop tanks. The Thunderbolts were also modified to pressurize the tanks above 20,000 feet by feeding vented air from the instrument vacuum pump into them, and became the norm for future operations, with range further extended periodically by the use of tanks of increasingly larger size. The use of wing tank pylons did not begin until May 1944 and because of its negative effect on maneuvering performance, was not preferred.
The addition of belly shackles also enabled the P-47 to carry bombs, and on a mission on November 25 both the 56th and 78th Fighter Groups bombed airfields in France, escorted by P-47s of the 353rd and 356th Groups. The 56th dropped from a horizontal attitude with mixed results, but the dive-bombing technique used by the 78th FG was particularly successful; the missions led to the subsequent development of the P-47 as a fighter-bomber, which became its primary role in the ETO.
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