Wetmore’s “Daddy’s Girl”

Written By Anton Petrov

North American, P-51D-10-NA (Mustang), Serial number 44-14733

370th Fighter Squadron, 359th Fighter Group, 8th Air Force, East Wretham, Norfolk, 1944-1945

Flown by Capt. Ray ("X-Ray Eyes") Shuey Wetmore (An ace with future 21.25 aerial victories, plus 1 damaged, plus 2.333 planes destroyed on the ground)

The image above is a depiction of what Daddy’s Girl might have looked like at the start of November 1944. (Please note that the livery is mostly hypothetical)

Airplane number 44-14733 was the first ‘bubble-top’ Mustang assigned to the twenty-one-year-old Capt. Ray Wetmore when he returned from USA for his second tour of duty in late fall of 1944. By this time the talented fighter ace already had 8.25 aerial victories and 2.33 ground kills to his name, making him 359 FG’s leading ace - a position he retained until the end of the war. He scored these victories in the airplanes he flew previously, two of which, like 44-14733, he allegedly also named “Daddy’s Girl”. One was a P-47D and the other a P-51B. But it was plane 44-14733, his third “Daddy’s Girl”, that became Wetmore’s most successful fighter. In it, he went on to score 9 of his 21.25 aerial kills [1]. The first two of these 9 victories (Wetmore’s 9.25th and 10.25th victory) occurred on the 2nd of November 1944, earning this soon-to-be highly decorated fighter ace his first Distinguished Service Cross:

9.25, 10.25) Nov 2, 1944 2 x Me-109 vicinity of Erfurt-Weimar-Jena (Germany)
On that day Wetmore spotted 30 Me-109s which had just attacked B-17s while the bombers were returning from bombing the synthetic oil refineries at Merseburg. Wetmore led his Mustangs down at the enemy and managed to break up their formation, but he gained so much speed in the dive that he didn’t have enough time to open fire. Nonetheless, it wasn’t long before Wetmore drew first blood by firing at one of the enemy fighters and sending it into a spin from which it couldn’t recover. As Daddy’s Girl tried to regain altitude it was pounced on by 15-20 Me-109s. With only two functioning guns, Wetmore fired a short burst at anther enemy, hitting it in the cockpit. The enemy stalled and fell to the ground.

Wetmore scored three more victories (victory 11.25,12.25,13.25) on Nov 27th, but on that day he was flying a P-51 with a serial number 44-14979 and a code CS-H.

He went on to score another 2.5 victories while flying Daddy’s Girl after that, these were:
14.25) Dec 31, 1944 1 x Me-109 vicinity of Hannover (Germany)
0.5 x Me-109 vicinity of Hannover (Germany)
15.75) Jan 1, 1945 1 x Me-109 vicinity of Lüneburg (Germany)

But the most successful battle action in Wetmore’s career happened on Jan 14th when Daddy’s Girl destroyed 4.5 enemy fighters. The book “P-51 Mustang Aces” describes the battle on the 14th of January as follows:

“…in the vicinity of a German aerodrome west of Dummer Lake. Ground control vectored Wetmore and his flight after enemy aircraft, and after several false alarms, he sighted a flight of four FW 190s passing below in trail. Wetmore dived down and tacked onto the last aircraft and hit it solidly. The pilot attempted to belly in, but crashed. As he pulled in behind the second FW 190 and put a short burst into it, the pilot tried to break but snap rolled into the ground. Wetmore then pulled in on the third FW 190 and sent it spinning down. He had told his wingman to get the fourth 190, but the pilot’s windshield had fogged up and, though he couldn’t see well, he did put some bullets into the enemy aircraft before Wetmore had to pull in and finish it off.
As Wetmore and his wingman climbed for altitude he sighted another two FW 190s. As he started to make his pass he was joined by a P-51 from another group. The two Mustangs pilots closed the gap on the FWs and hit both of them so solidly that the pilots bailed out.” [2]

These victories were :

16.75, 17.75,18.75, 19.75, 20.25) Jan 14, 1945 4 x FW-190 vicinity of Vorden A/F (Netherlands)
0.5 x FW-190 West of Dummer Lake (Germany?)


Daddy’s Girl as it probably looked between 1st and 14th of January, 1945. The victories scored on the 14th of January do not yet appear on the airplane. These extra victories were later painted on the airplane’s fuselage rather than on the canopy rail. (Please note that the livery is mostly hypothetical)

Just under two months later, on the 10th of March, 1945, while the 359th was escorting B-17s to bomb the marshalling yards at Hagen and Schwerte, they received a call diverting the fighters to Ludendorff bridge at Remagen, to search for the attacking FW 190s and Ar 234 jet bombers. The American anti-aircraft gunners at the bridge were not notified of the approaching Mustangs, and the 359th came under intense friendly fire, as well as fire from a German 20 mm flack gun situated on a nearby hillside. The German gunners shot down two Mustangs, their pilots perishing, and Wetmore’s Daddy’s Girl was hit by the American gunners. Daddy’s Girl’s starboard wing was set on fire and the sliding canopy got jammed and failed to jettison because it got caught on a camera installed behind the armour plate at the back of the head rest. Luckily for Wetmore, the fire in the wing died out eventually and Wetmore was able to belly land Daddy’s Girl in St.Trond in Belgium. Lt. John F. ‘Bum’ McAlvey who witnessed Wetmore’s predicament that day described it so:

‘To simply say he was shot up by flack and forced to belly land his aeroplane misses entirely the drama of being trapped in a burning aircraft. It omits the fact that he was on fire, and the additional fact - which did nothing to his nerves or self-confidence after he bellied in - that ground personnel at St. Trond had to use crowbars to get the canopy off the fighter so that he could get out’. [3]

Wetmore returned to his unit on the 12th. Evidently, Daddy’s Girl was in need of serious repairs after the belly landing, because when Cpt. Ray Wetmore took off for yet another sortie a few days later (on the 15th) he was flying a different Mustang, a P-51D-15NA, CS-V, with a serial number 44-15521. That day he shot down a Me-163, Komet, rocket-powered interceptor. This was the only enemy aircraft shot down by the entire VIII Fighter Command that day, and it was Wetmore’s last kill of the war.

Profile above shows what 44-14733 probably looked like while being repaired from the damage suffered on the 10th of March, 1945, as per this photo

Profile above shows what 44-14733 probably looked like after the repairs, as can be seen in this photo

After the repairs, Daddy’s Girl remained in the 370th squadron and was later reassigned to Lt. James J. Ruggles who renamed it “Ruggie’s Ruthie”. Though I was unable to find photos of what Ruggie’s Ruthie looked like during the war, a post-war photo of this airplane is available online, but unfortunately, by the time it was photographed it was already devoid of any names on the fuselage, as can be seen below.

The image above shows Wetmore’s/Ruggles’ plane number 44-14733 after the war. By this time any of the names that appeared on it previously, were painted over.
(The image is a fragment of a full photo which can be found on WikiMedia Commons)

Profile of 44-14733 based on the photo above.

 

Noteworthy Visual Characteristics

Please note! The four elevations of the airplane shown below, are hypothetical. In these illustrations I attempted to depict Daddy’s Girl as I think it might have looked on the 14th of January, 1945 - the day of the air battle near Vorden when Wetmore scored 4.5 victories, This was Wetmore’s and Daddy’s Girl’s greatest air battle achievement and the last victories that Wetmore scored in Daddy’s Girl.

1) “Daddy’s Girl” is the name young Wetmore gave to his airplane. It was named after his baby daughter, Diane.

2) The green nose was the identification marking of the 359th F.G. Originally the marking covered only the spinner and the part of the cowling up until the first exhaust stack. From November 1944 the paintwork was extended further down the nose, to cover the entire exhaust stack in a curve from the top of the nose down to the wing root, as can be seen on 44-14733. I was unable to find information about the exact shade of green used by the 359th F.G.

3) The top of the nose was painted with non-glare paint, most likely ‘Black’ or possibly ‘Olive Green’.

4) The space above the data stencil appears to be empty , as on many P-51s of the 359th F.G. Sometimes other P-51s used this space to list the names of the airplane’s crew.

5) There was a camera installed at the back of the headrest on Wetmore’s plane.

6) “CS” was the identification code of the 370’s fighter squadron.

7) The antena mast appears to have been painted with the same Olive Drab colour as the top of the nose. Note a band of a different colour at the base of the mast.

8) “L” was the identification code of Wetmore’s plane.

9) 414733 indicates the serial number of the airplane (44-14733). Note that the digits have stencil marks on them and what appears to be some paint chipping, especially on the second ‘4’.

10) The blue rudder was the identification marking of the 370th squadron.

11) On Patreon

12) On Patreon

13) Note that the antena wires seem to be absent.

14) Note the mirror attached to the top of the canopy hood.

Possible evolution of the livery

Please note! The images below don’t show all of the stages in the livery evolution of this airplane (for example, “the Ruggie’s Ruthie” livery is omitted entirely) and some of the profiles shown below are hypothetical, they are based on my presumptions (discussed below).

1) It is likely that originally 44-14733 was equipped with a N-9 gunsight, with a ‘ring and bead’. This was likely replaced for a more advanced gunsight later.

2) Wetmore is believed to have had 8.25 aerial and 2.33 strafing (ground) kills by the time he started flying Daddy’s Girl in battle in late Autumn 1944 and he scored 2 more victories on the 2nd of November while flying Daddy’s Girl. So it makes sense to presume that his airplane around the start of November might have had about 10-12 victory markings painted on it.
These victories were represented by small Nazi flags, as can be seen in this photo.
P.S. Strangely, Wetmore’s 8.25 aerial and 2.33 ground victories do not match up with the total victory markings on his previous airplane which shows 9 aerial and 4 ground kills .

3) The Black/White D-Day stripes (used to identify friend from foe) were present on the fuselages of the fighters of the 370th squadron in late fall of 1944. Other parts of the airplane (such as top and bottom of the wings) were painted with only the one single black Invasion Stripe.

4) I have only seen a maximum of 18 victory markings on the canopy frame of 44-14733. 18 victories (15.75 aerial and 2.33 ground victories most likely) is the amount of Wetmore’s victories up until the 14th Jan, 1945, but not including the 4.5 victories he scored on the 14th of Jan, in theory.

5) Daddy’s Girl had a camera installed behind the head rest, possibly as early as Jan, 1945.

6) The 23 victory markings on the side of Daddy’s Girl, now represented by black swastikas, cover all of Wetmore’s total victories, which were 21.25 aerial victories (presumably rounded off to 21) plus 2.33 ground victories (presumably rounded off to 2). These new markings evidently replaced the earlier 18 victory markings on the canopy frame.

Interestingly, at least one piece of photo evidence shows both marking placements present on Daddy’s Girl simultaneously. This was most likely during the time when the airplane was being repaired.

Later photos show only the markings on the side of the airplane remaining. I presume the reason the markings on the canopy frame don’t appear in the post-repairs photos is because, as already described above, the canopy hood was damaged on the 10th of March (it had to be pried open with crow bars to get Wetmore out!) so the old canopy hood was probably just replaced.

7) Same photo evidence as referred to in the point above, seems to show only the bracket present behind the head rest, with no camera mounted on it.

8) The name Daddy’s Girl appears quite dark in earlier b/w photos and very light in later photos. It is quite likely that it was actually repainted from yellow to white, possibly to make it stand out better in black/white photographs.

9) Note that the red outline was added to the letter codes at some stage. The photos of Wetmore’s plane before the belly-landing seem to not show any outline around the letter codes, especially based on this photo where we can see a close-up of the letter ‘C’ on the left but there doesn’t seem to be an outline there.

10) Note the masking tape around the white part of the insignia. The insignia was evidently given a coat of fresh paint after the belly-landing (the white part of the insignia at least) .

11) Note that the tip of the horizontal stabilizers/elevators was painted, as can be seen in this photo. Presumably it was blue, like the rudder?

12) The serial number was originally applied with a stencil, but after the repairs following the belly landing, the stencil marks seem to have been filled in/painted over.

13) Note the shape of the demarcation line between the green and the silver is slightly different in the post-war image and the war-time images.
The nose was most likely repainted at least a couple of times, no doubt covering the airplane’s names each time.

14) Note that the mirror, the camera and the camera bracket were all later removed , as can be seen in the post-war photo of plane 44-14733.

15) There is a good chance that the letter codes might have been painted on the lower surface of the portside wing at the end of the war or soon after. This hypothesis is based on the fact that “Caroline” which appears in the same photo used as reference, had these codes painted on the wing.

FOOTNOTES

[1] All information about Wetmore’s victories is based on (or was deduced based on) the book by Frank Olynyk called “Stars & Bars”, published by Grub Street in 1995, p.630-631.

[2] ‘P-51 Mustang Aces’, by William N. Hess and Thomas G.Ivie, published by Motorbooks International in 1992, page 114, ISBN 0-87938-530-8

[3] ‘359th Fighter Group’, by Jack H. Smith, published by Osprey Publishing in 2002, pages 106, PDF e-book ISBN:978 1 78200 571 1

All the work presented on this page is subject to updates and revisions in the light of new information which might present itself. If you have any new information relevant to this page or disagree with anything that's presented here, then please contact me through the Planes in Profile Facebook page to help make the content of this page more accurate. Thanks:)

Anton Petrov
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