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Concept
Hubert Zemke
Summary
Colonel Hubert Zemke (March 14, 1914 – August 30, 1994) was a career officer in the United States Air Force, a fighter pilot in World War II, and a leading United States Army Air Forces ace. General Jimmy Doolittle praised Zemke as his "greatest fighter group commander". He commanded the 56th Fighter Group in England, which came to be known as "Zemke's Wolf Pack".
Born March 14, 1914, to German immigrant parents, Anna (1889–1972) and Benno Zemke (1882–1967), in Missoula, Montana, Zemke had no desire to fly; he intended to pursue a degree in forestry at the University of Montana in Missoula on football and boxing scholarships. While at the University of Montana, he was a member of Sigma Nu Fraternity. He left school in February 1936 to enter Army Flight Training.(Ref )
In 1936 Zemke's friends convinced him to try out for pilot training in the United States Army Air Corps. He was accepted as an aviation cadet, gained his pilot's wings and commissions at Randolph Field, then attended the pursuit pilot course at Kelly Field, Texas, in 1937, becoming a Curtiss P-40 pilot with the 36th Pursuit Squadron at Langley Field, Virginia.
In 1940, Zemke was sent to England as a combat observer with the Royal Air Force (RAF), studying the tactics of both the RAF and the Luftwaffe, observations that he would use later when the United States entered the war. In 1941, he was sent to the Soviet Union to instruct Russian pilots in flying lend-lease P-40 Tomahawks.
56th Fighter Group
In February 1942, after the United States' entry into World War II, Zemke desired to join a United States Army Air Forces (USAAF) unit and made his way back to the United States through Iran and Egypt. After several temporary assignments, including tests of the new P-47 Thunderbolt, Zemke, by then a major, became group commander of the 56th Fighter Group—the first fighter group to fly the P-47—on September 16, 1942, preparing it for movement to England.
Official source
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