Arrogant U.S. Generals Made the P-51 Mustang a Necessity

War is Boring

With better leadership, the iconic fighter plane might’ve been unnecessary

by JAMES PERRY STEVENSON and PIERRE SPREY

The benefits the P-51 Mustang brought to aerial battles in World War II, particularly over Germany, are reasonably well known. The iconic fighter plane could fly higher, faster, farther and generate more kills per sortie than the U.S. Army Air Force’s aviation bureaucracy’s preferred P-47s or P-38s.

However, the real P-51 Mustang story is just as much about the difficult gestation of a great new fighter as it is about the quashing of the drop tanks urgently needed to extend the range of existing fighters. Then there’s the guerilla tactics some officials unleashed in the corridors of power to overcome the Army’s “not invented here” hostility to the plane, as well as the mendacious post-war rewriting of history by the newly minted U.S. Air Force.

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