(B. Kamego)
1/Lt. William J. Leonard
(B. Kamego)
1/Lt. William J. Leonard
338th FS - 26 May 1944 - 04 December 1944
| Assigned Aircraft |
Not Known (Help with identifying the attached P-51 photo and ground crew, would be appreciated). Photo courtesy of Bill Kamego. |
| Mission History |
310 combat hours |
| Mission List |
Not Known |
| Air Scores |
1-0-1 |
| Ground Scores |
0-0 |
| Score Detail |
11 September 1944 Me-109 destroyed (air) S/Meiningen 11 September 1944 Me-109 damaged (air) S/Meiningen (escort mission to Ruhland) |
| Notes | Assigned to Squadron as a Flight Officer (FO)
T-1847 Awarded Air Medal on 13 July 1944 Promoted to 2nd Lt.on 18 July 1944 AAF s/n 0-887060 1st Oak Leaf Cluster (OLC) to Air Medal 31 August 1944 Promoted to 1st Lt. on 15 September 1944 Awarded Distinguished Fly Cross ( DFC ) on13 October 1944 Awarded 1st OLC to DFC on 14 November 1944 Awarded 5 th OLC to Air Medal on 14 November 1944 Assigned as " A" flight commander on 15 September 1944 until 4 December 1944. 04 December 1944 - Transferred to 70th Replacement Depot Lt. Leonard was killed after his tour, while on an engineering test flight of a P-51-D-20AO in Texas in April 1945. |
| Memories | "I have the accident report from the gov. Those planes went a lot faster than than most people think. The accident report mentioned that 'aircraft assigned to rocket gunnery are test flown at 505 MPH or the airspeed redline' After this accident all P51's at Foster Field were restricted to 450 MPH." (Bill Kamego) |
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Additional Photo (Opens in new window. Close window to return to this page). |
Lt Leonard showing bullet holes in his P-51 to his ground crew, after the 11 September 1944 mission. (Photo courtesy of Bill Kamego) |
| Newspaper Article (Opens in new window. Close window to return to this page). | Clippings from the Detroit News newspaper on Lt. Leonard, dated 20th September 1944 |