The official captions to the two photos below are: “North American P-51 Mustangs [sic] fighters escort Boeing B-29 Superfortresses. Iwo Jima.” In actuality, the B-29s in these photos were serving as navigational aircraft in escorting the P-51s from Iwo Jima to Japan and back.

The 1,500 mile round trip flights over a vast expanse of ocean with minimal landmarks made navigating in a single engine fighter an extremely difficult task. Only a few fighter pilots with sufficient experience would feel confident to take on that task. To take that burden off of the VLR fighter pilots, six B-29 navigation planes in three pairs led the Mustangs on each mission. Upon reaching a designated point off the Japanese coast, the B-29s would circle while the Mustangs would venture inland either escorting the main bomber stream or striking their intended targets.

When the Mustangs began to retreat to the designated rendezvous point, the first pair of B-29s would wait until about half of the fighters had arrived, then set course for Iwo Jima. The other two pairs of bombers departed the coast at approximately ten minute intervals to allow latecomers to join up with them for the long flight back to Iwo Jima. The last pair of B-29s to depart transmitted the Morse Code letters for U and D on the Uncle Dog radio frequency so late departing Mustangs could hone in on those bombers until they were close enough to Iwo Jima to hone in on the signals sent from Brother Agate.

This system worked extremely well and gave VLR Mustang pilots the confidence that they would return safely to Iwo Jima even if they got separated from their squadron or group.

References: The Mustangs of Iwo, Barrett Tillman, Air & Space Forces Magazine, April 1, 2013.