Please help me identify this photo

[Eoraptor1]

Okay, back again...

I found this photo while going through family albums to digitize the pics for my relatives. As pictured, there is only about two-thirds of the photo left and I've thus far been unable to located the rest. It was printed on paper with a Bell watermark on the back, which isn't a surprise; the P-39 was produced locally and I've seen several of them up close. See HERE: http://wnyaerospace.org/?p=508

Any information about who the men pictured in the photo would be greatly appreciated.

JAMES

[glh]

Here's a possible:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tuskegee_Airmen

The 99th Fighter Squadron was initially equipped with Curtiss P-40 Warhawk fighter-bomber aircraft. The 332nd Fighter Group and its 100th, 301st and 302nd Fighter Squadrons were equipped for initial combat missions with Bell P-39 Airacobras (March 1944), later with Republic P-47 Thunderbolts (June–July 1944), and finally with the aircraft with which they became most commonly associated, the North American P-51 Mustang (July 1944).

[Eoraptor1]

Thank you for your response. That this was a photo of the 99th or some other unit of the 332nd was my first guess, but I really have no way of knowing. I'd like to find the missing piece of the photo, but over the past three years I've inherited hundreds of them and I'm still sifting through them. We also had a flood summer before last that made things an even bigger mess. My garage looks like the last scene of Raiders of the Lost Ark.

JAMES

[Devildog73]

Yeppers, Tuskegee Airmen in Italy in front of one of their P-39s.

The photo is mostly mechanics and ground crew as I see only a couple of officer insignia on the hats.

Probably taken in Spring 1944 at Capodichino airfield northeast of Naples. They were a ground support unit around Anzio then.

Later that same year the Tuskegee Airmen moved to Ramitelli and climbed into P-47s for a couple of months before getting their P-51s.

The P-39Qs were turned over to our newly allied Italian Air Force.

If you take a look at this photo, you might just see a couple of the exact same faces as in your photo.

http://www.timesonline.com/news/loca...=image&photo=1

[Eoraptor1]

Yeppers, Tuskegee Airmen in Italy in front of one of their P-39s.

The photo is mostly mechanics and ground crew as I see only a couple of officer insignia on the hats.

Probably taken in Spring 1944 at Capodichino airfield northeast of Naples. They were a ground support unit around Anzio then.

Later that same year the Tuskegee Airmen moved to Ramitelli and climbed into P-47s for a couple of months before getting their P-51s.

The P-39Qs were turned over to our newly allied Italian Air Force.

If you take a look at this photo, you might just see a couple of the exact same faces as in your photo.

http://www.timesonline.com/news/loca...=image&photo=1

Devildog,

Thank you for the response and the link. I apologize for taking so long getting back to you, but I haven't had a lot of time to read the forums lately. Again, thank you very very much. Now, if I could only find the other half of the photo.

JAMES