Seversky P-35 - Operational History

Operational History

The first P-35s were delivered to the 1st Pursuit Group (27th, 71st and 94th PS) stationed at Selfridge Field in Michigan. The aircraft utilized a wet wing to save weight and ground personnel quickly learned about the persistent fuel leaks. The P-35's performance was poor even by contemporary standards and, although USAAC aviators appreciated the aircraft's ruggedness, it was already obsolete by the time deliveries were finished in 1938.

On 18 June 1940, United States declared an embargo against exporting weapons to any nation other than the United Kingdom. Optimistically, Republic continued to manufacture EP-106s which, by the 24 October 1940 order, 60 were taken over by the USAAC as the P-35A. The aircraft were re-armed to American standards with a pair of 0.50 in machine guns that fired through the propeller, but retained the Swedish specification of a 0.30 in machine gun mounted in each wing. Flight instruments were metric, and both their labeling and flight manuals written in Swedish. Of these, three aircraft were kept in United States as instructional airframes for mechanics. Six P-35As were delivered to Ecuador to form the first combat unit, the Escuadrilla de Caza. The remainder were sent to the Far East Air Force in the Philippines beginning in February 1941. Eventually all pilots of the three pursuit squadrons on Luzon transitioned to the P-35A from the P-26. About 10 of these were lost in accidents. The P-35s were used primarily as gunnery trainers by all three squadrons because of a critical shortage of .50-caliber ammunition in the Far East Air Force, placing a strain on the engines of all the aircraft since no replacement engines were available. In October 1941, the P-35s were earmarked for transfer to the Philippine Army Air Corps after sufficient Curtiss P-40 Warhawks were received by the FEAF.

In November 1941, after the 3rd and 17th PS received new P-40E aircraft, most of their P-35As were passed to two newly-arrived squadrons attached to the group, the 21st and 34th PS, with the latter receiving most. The 21st PS received its P-40Es on the eve of war and transferred its few P-35s to the 34th Pursuit Squadron, which then had nearly a full squadron. It then fought with them in the futile defense of the islands in December 1941, initially at Del Carmen Field. They were hopelessly outclassed by the Japanese fighters. Lack of armor and self-sealing fuel tanks made the aircraft extremely vulnerable (12 P-35As were destroyed and six damaged by a Japanese strafing attack on Del Carmen Airfield on 10 December) and by 12 December 1941, only eight P-35As were still in flying condition. In January 1942, five surviving P-35As attempted to fly to Bataan from Lubao Airfield, but two were shot down as they attempted to land, and a third was destroyed in place when no volunteer could be found to fly it. The two remaining P-35s transported several unit personnel to Mindanao in their baggage compartments. On 4 April, they returned briefly to Bataan to evacuate other personnel, and one was lost crash-landing on Cebu on 10 April. The sole surviving P-35 was turned over to Capt. Ramon Zosa of the PAAC on 30 April, and flew its last sortie out of Del Monte Airfield, accompanying a P-40 on a strafing attack of Japanese landings at Macajalar Bay on 3 May 1942.