laststandonzombieisland

How about this great period Kodachrome of a quartet of USAAF P-39 Airacobras flying over Dale Mabry Army Air Field in Tallahassee, Florida, likely in mid-late 1942.

Note the mottled well-worn appearance of these training birds with large white cowling numbers painted over existing smaller yellow numbers and white-dusted sides where exhaust has been scrubbed off. The two closest birds, White 253 and White 255, have visible tail numbers 138276 (41-38276) and 128360 (SN 41-28360), which points to them being Bell P-39D-BE models manufactured in 1941.

Mabry, which only stood up in May 1941, was a major fighter pilot training base during World War II, with some 8,000 Allied aviators learning their trade there including British, Free French, and Chinese KMT flyers.

For those curious, 41-28360 was written off on 25 October 1942 at Townsend, Florida, likely after suffering some sort of damage (hard to handle by novices, 21 P-39s crashed near Mabry Field during training in 1942 alone) while the fate of 41-38276 is lost to history. Sadly, there are no P-39Ds on display in the U.S. today even though over 400 were produced. 

Today, the land that Mabry is on is now the Florida Highway Patrol Training Academy– where I have had the joy of attending armorer’s classes– and the campus of the Tallahassee Community College.