Three pilots and a flight surgeon died in training accidents while at Tonopah, including Captain White, who was replaced by Major Thomas Hayes, another veteran of the early Pacific campaign.

[8] In June the group entered its next training phase, changing stations to Santa Rosa Army Air Field, California (the 362 FS was based at nearby Hayward).

Pilots from both units learned that the P-51s still had maintenance flaws to be worked out, primarily in guns that jammed in maneuvering and engines that overheated from loss of coolant, and the commanding officer of the 363 FS was shot down on a mission while flying with the 354th Fighter Group on 25 January 1944.

The need for a long-range escort fighter had resulted in a decision to give the Eighth Air Force a priority for the Mustang, reversing the earlier allocation of these groups to the Ninth for tactical support of Allied ground operations in France.

The groups' fourth combat mission was its first over Germany, at the start of the coordinated strategic bombing attacks against the Luftwaffe and the German aircraft industry that came to be called the "Big Week."

The Eighth Air Force had in January given veteran units permission to use brightly colored spinners and identification bands on the engine cowls of their fighters.

In late 1944 the 357th began to discontinue the use of olive drab camouflage and adopted a color system painted on the tail rudders of its Mustangs to identify the squadron.

Like all Allied aircraft flying over the continent, the 357th applied alternating 18-inch (460 mm), black and white bands, known as "invasion stripes", to the rear fuselage and wings of its fighters just prior to D-Day.

Beginning in late February 1944, Eighth Air Force fighter units began systematic strafing attacks on German airfields that picked up in frequency and intensity throughout the spring (as example, on the above-mentioned missions VIII Fighter Command scored 130 strafing kills in addition to 109 aerial victories) with the objective of gaining air supremacy over the Normandy battlefield.

The 357th also began receiving new P-51D Mustangs as replacement aircraft but many pilots preferred the earlier B models still prevalent in the group as being more maneuverable and better-powered at high altitude.

In July 1944, the K-14, an improved gyroscopic gunsight of British design, reached the 357th for replacement of the existing N-3B reflector sights in the P-51B and C. The K-14 allowed for rapid, accurate lead-computing of up to 90° deflection by analog computer with pilot inputs through hand controls.

Group commander Col. Donald Graham directed the 469th Service Squadron to mount a K-14 in his assigned P-51D (44-13388 B6-W Bodacious) to replace its N-9 reflector sight, using bracing and panel cutouts to form a recess.

Temporarily based at San Severo with the 31st Fighter Group, the 357th supported a C-47 mission to Yugoslavia on 10 August to evacuate Allied evaders and escaped POWs.

While themselves a harbinger of a tactical change by the Luftwaffe, the contacts also indicated that the Germans were husbanding their fighter aircraft for sporadic reaction against Allied bomber attacks.

The 357th, escorting B-17s against oil targets near Munich, encountered one such reaction on 13 September, engaging 75 Messerschmitt Bf 109s and claiming 15 shot down, but losing five Mustangs.

Air-to-air contacts declined in the following month, but one notable combat occurred during an escort mission to Bremen on 12 October 1944, when 1st Lt. Chuck Yeager claimed five German fighters to become an "Ace in a day", and the group scored its 400th kill.

1st Lt. Edward R. "Buddy" Haydon shared a jet credit in which the German commander, Major Walter Nowotny, was killed, and 1st Lt. James W. Kenney shot down Hauptmann Franz Schall.

[21] The Jagdverbände made three concerted attempts to attack Eighth Air Force bombers between 21 and 27 November 1944, and on the last generated an estimated 750 fighter sorties, the largest defensive reaction of the war.

The resulting radar contact triggered the heavy fighter reaction near Magdeburg, and the force was directed towards them by a microwave early warning (MEW) site ("Nuthouse") at Gulpen, Netherlands.

Captain Leonard K. "Kit" Carson, on the 38th mission of his second tour and having nine previous credits, became the second 357th pilot to become an "ace in a day", while Yeager and Capt John B. England claimed four kills each.

The heavily armored "sturmgruppen" Fw 190s of II/JG 300 attacked the B-17s in "company front" formations of eight abreast, while a protective force of 100 Bf 109s of JG 300's other three gruppen attempted to cover them from 32,000.

The 30-minute battle resulted in 56.5 German fighters claimed as shot down, by far the largest single day kill of the war by an Eighth Air Force group.

[25] Even so, the mission resulted in five more aces for the 357th (Dregne, Evans, Maxwell, Sublett and Weaver) and immediate recognition of the feat by Eighth Air Force commanding General Jimmy Doolittle.

On 24 March, flying an area patrol near Gütersloh to protect the Allied airborne crossing of the Rhine, it encountered 20 Bf 109s of JG 27 and shot down 16 without loss.

[citation needed] The Jagdverbände, severely depleted, turned to jet interceptions beginning 9 February 1945, in an attempt to stop the onslaught of Allied heavy bombers.

The tactic resulted in increasing numbers of jets shot down and controlled the dangerous situation, particularly as the amount of German-controlled territory shrank daily.

[citation needed] Of the 128 combat losses, 38 were attributed to attack by German fighters, 29 to flak, ten to mid-air collisions, 21 to mechanical causes (mostly engine failure), five to friendly fire, five to bad weather and 20 to causes not determined.

[28] Distinguished Unit Citation World War II: The first aerial victory by a 357th pilot occurred 20 February 1944, with the downing of a Bf 109 by 1st Lt. Calvert L. Williams, 362d Fighter Squadron, flying P-51B 43-6448 (G4-U Wee Willie).

Originally the Mustang flew in olive drab camouflage, but in late 1944, was stripped to a bare metal finish, although its black-and-white "invasion stripes" remained on the bottom of the rear fuselage.

Among Mustangs restored to resemble 357th aircraft are: 1OD=Olive Drab, NMF=Natural Metal Finish This article incorporates public domain material from the Air Force Historical Research Agency