USAAF Operational and Replacement Training Units (OTUs/RTUs)

[BobTou]

I'm hoping someone can answer some basic questions on USAAF OTUs/RTUs (and the follow-on AAF Base Units, AAFBUs):

- A typical OTU moved from base to base stateside before being sent overseas for combat. Before receiving its combat aircraft, can I assume that an OTU simply drew aircraft from a 'pool' at every base at which it trained? If so, would the base’s Air Base Group typically have ‘owned’ the aircraft pool during periods of downtime in OTU activity?

- When an OTU (say, a combat-coded P-47 Fighter Group) was in training stateside, it was presumably assigned the actual aircraft that it would later take into combat. If so, when in the training cycle would an OTU have typically received its combat aircraft; i.e., early in the unit’s training process, or later, perhaps just before the unit was sent overseas?

- Some RTUs and AAFBUs operated at a given base for six months or more. Can I assume that, in general, RTUs and AAFBUs were assigned their own organic fleet of aircraft, as opposed to drawing from a pool at the base that hosted them?

- Would the aircraft belonging to an RTU or AAFBU, or to an OTU while stateside, have had unit-specific markings? Or would the planes have been generically painted?

Thanks for any help you can render…and for steering me straight if my assumptions are completely off-base.

[Dave Smith]

Bob, this is a complicated subject about which I know very little but the following links might help. There is also stuff on Wiki but of course you can't always rely on its accuracy. The AAF site below used to have a detailed list of BUs but I can't find it now. There is a note that the site is on a changeover and data is still being transferred so hopefully it will reappear.

http://forum.armyairforces.com/

http://www.fuselagecodes.com/

Dave S

[BobTou]

Thanks, Dave S...I'll definitely check out the AAF forum. (Interestingly, I posed my questions here at WIX based on a suggestion from the gent who runs the excellent 'fuselagecodes' site!)

[Dave Smith]

Funny how these things go round in circles! Also try the 12 O'Clock High Forum:

http://forum.12oclockhigh.net/forumdisplay.php?f=7

[BobTou]

Thanks again, Dave. Having dabbled in aviation history since well before the PC, let alone the internet, I like the fact that so many resources (nice, informed folks like those on these forums) are out there. I'm confident I'll get answers in time.
--Bob T