Tag Archives: 421st Fighter Squadron

Kindle Liberty 83 Time Machine

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How about a great 18-minute full color clip from the AP Archives, recently published, from Operation Kindle Liberty 83 in the Panama Canal Zone from February 1983?

The clip opens aboard the circa 1956 Ingalls-built Thomaston-class dock landing ship USS Spiegel Grove (LSD-32), a hard-working gator of old that continued in U.S. service until 1989 and was later turned into a reef in the Florida Keys. It includes a close-up of her twin 3″/50 Mark 22 and an LCU in her well deck (some things never change). Her bluejackets are clad in the old denim working uniform, complete with bellbottoms. There is also a short clip of a pair of 1950s Bluebird class 144-foot coastal minesweepers (MSC) tied up.

Then you get a visit to the old Howard AFB (note the naming convention used as standard for American bases, while overseas bases were Air Stations).

Aboard Howard, which was carved out of the jungle by the USAAF back in 1942, are visiting F-16As of the Hill AFB-based “Black Widows” of the 421st Fighter Squadron, which operated increasingly advanced Viper models until switching to the F-35A in 2017. You also see the old C-141 Starlifter in its full-color MATS livery and visiting woodland camouflaged Air National Guard A-7s. Turned back over to Panama in 1999, today, Howard is the Panamá Pacífico International Airport.

A short C-47 ride puts you in the jungle with U.S. Army and OD-clad PDF forces, including both the M-151 MUTT and the Jeep CJ at play in the same convoy.

At 11:27, you get a neat cameo by the RN’s West Indies guardship at the time, the Leander class frigate HMS Diomede (F 16), a veteran of two Cod Wars with the Icelanders and the recent scuffle over the Falklands. Still young and beautiful in the news footage, with just 12 years on her hull, she would be sold to Pakistan in 1988 and serve as PNS Shamsheer until 2003.

By 11:48, you get the treat of the Canal Zone’s mighty green protectors, the Harbor Patrol Unit’s 32-foot Mark II PBR (Patrol Boat, River) boats, a force that later became SBU-26 in 1987. A holdover from the old Vietnam PBR days, complete with twin .50s up front, they proved really useful in 1989’s Operation Just Cause before the unit was disestablished in 1999. All you are missing are “Clean,” Lance, Chief Philips, and Chef Hicks.

You also get a few close-ups of the Swift-built aluminum-hulled PDF patrol boats Comandante Torrijos and Ponte Porras (both of which I believe were sunk in Just Cause), as well as a 50-foot PCF Swift boat of the HPU out of Rodman NS, another Vietnam leftover. The PCF even sports a piggyback 81mm mortar/.50 cal M2 on the stern.

Drink it in!

Black Widow On Deck

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80 years ago this week, a USAAF 421st Night Fighter Squadron Northrop P-61B-20-NO Black Widow (SN 43-8317) seen landing at recently liberated and expanded Puerto Princesa Airfield, Tacloban, Leyte, 8 February 1945. Official caption: “One of the first 13th AAF Black Widows to arrive at Puerto Princesa buzzes the strip preparatory to peeling up, dropping his wheels, and landing.”

Check out that luxurious control tower! While I cannot find the ultimate end of #317, Baugher notes that of the 83 P-61B-20-NOs produced, at least 22 were lost or written off, with the leading causes primarily due to accidents while landing or mid-air accidents. Night fighters were tough on crews. Of note, this photo was published in the August 145 issue of Air Force magazine. (U.S. Air Force Number 58348AC) National Archives Identifier 204949312

Constituted as 421st Night Fighter Squadron on 30 April 1943, the 421st stood up stateside at the Kissimmee AAFld in Florida– the future home of Disney– with troublesome Douglas P-70 Havoc night fighters before shipping out to Milne Bay, New Guinea just after New Year’s 1944. Flying from Nadzab, Wakde, and Owi during the New Guinea/Bismarck Archipelago campaign, the unit ditched their P-70s for P-38Js (without radar!) before finally getting some Widows.

On 7 July 1944, a P-61 crew in the 421st NFS based in New Guinea shot down a Japanese twin-engine Mitsubishi Ki-46 Dinah reconnaissance airplane, only the type’s second air-to-air “kill” in the with their Saipan-based sister squadron, the 419th, bagging a moonlit Betty a week prior. 

They then shifted north to the PI, operating from San Marcelino and then to Tacloban (as seen above) until 23 March when Clark Field on Luzon became their next stepping stone to Okinawa, operating from Ie Shima beginning on 24 July 1945. They ended their war occupying Itazuke Air Base, Japan, with 16 confirmed aerial victories to their tally sheet and 7 campaign streamers.

Inactivated on 20 February 1947, they reformed 15 years later as the F-105-equipped 421st TFS and soon took their show on the road, flying out of Incirlik during the Cold War as well as some serious Southeast Asia time on five deployments as Phantom Phlyers between 1969 and 1973 (DaNang, Kunsan, Takhli, and Udorn), earning three Presidential Unit Citations.

Stationed at Hill AFB in Utah since 1975, they flew F-16A/Cs during numerous trips to the sandbox in the 1990s and 2000s before upgrading to F-35As in 2017.

They still wear the “Widow” as their official patch. 

210421-F-EF974-2024

And they are no doubt still ready to mix it up after dark.

Two F-35 Lightning IIs assigned to the 421st Fighter Squadron from Hill Air Force Base, Utah, sit on the flight line during a thunderstorm at Nellis Air Force Base, Nevada, July 25, 2021. (U.S. Air Force photo by Airman 1st Class Zachary Rufus)