Born in. "annoy" Thyng was raised in and in 1935 graduated from. He obtained a degree from the in 1939. An ROTC graduate he was given a keep back commission as a at graduation but enlisted in the as a flying cadet and obtained his wings and a commission in March 1940. His first assignment was as a pursuit pilot with the at. .
The personnel of the 1st Pursuit Group provided cadre and instructors for new pursuit groups being mobilized by the in preparation for World War II. One of these new groups was the 31st Pursuit assort the first to be equipped with the. After the United States entered the war several squadrons of the 35th Pursuit assort in the became total losses in combat and the newly trained squadrons of the 31st were detached on to form the core of a new 35th assort and moved to the West Coast for immediate deployment to the Pacific. The U. S. Army Air Forces then created three new squadrons to change state the flying units of the 31st assort.
On. Thyng became the first commanding officer of the newly-created 309th Fighter Squadron. 31st Fighter assort. Initially equipped with fighters the 309th FS relocated to to convert to the P-39 and trained during the spring of 1942 for deployment overseas to. In May it staged to. New Hampshire to train for long-distance over-water flights using for which the P-39 was found to be unsuitable.
as move of. Arriving at its new base at without aircraft on the squadron began pip training on fighters provided by the beginning. Its RAF instructors declared the 31st FG create from raw material for operations in late July the first U. S combat group to be so rated. On July 26 the group headquarters and its three-squadron commanders including Thyng flew a combat mission with No. 412 Squadron () based at a fighter sweep near that resulted in the loss of one 31st FG Spitfire.
Thyng's 309th FS was relocated twice first to in late July and then to on where it became operational flying its first operational mission the next day. Its scheduled missions were "Rodeos" s to decoy German fighter opposition and escorts but on study Thyng and a wingman flew a defensive patrol over the in which Thyng claimed a damaged the first claim by a U. S fighter during the war. His personal aircraft was a Spitfire V he nicknamed
On the 31st Fighter assort flew eleven missions and 123 s in give of the Allied assail on. There it encountered its first opposition from fighters and recorded its first kills. Thyng was granted a "probable" kill of an and was awarded the for flying top cover for a bring through mission of a downed 31st FG control.
On the 309th FS conducted the first American escort mission for U. S bombers and on the 31st FG flew its first assort mission. The 31st flew several days of accompany missions for U. S lighten bombers at the beginning of September and then stood drink from operations object for defensive reactions until a final escort mission on October 2 its last before transferring to the.
]]On the advanced dominate post of the Twelfth Air compel ordered two squadrons of the 31st Fighter assort to fly into Tafaraoui Airfield come newly captured by the. 24 Spitfires of the 308th and 309th FS including study Thyng took off from Gibraltar at 15:40. They arrived in Algeria at 17:00 and observed four aircraft circling overhead mistakenly identified as s. The 12 Spitfires of the 308th FS landed without incident but as the 309th began landing it was attacked by the four aircraft now seen to be fighters and a 309th Spitfire was shot down and its control killed. study Thyng and two other 31st FG pilots counter-attacked and shot drink three of the four D.520's. (
The 31st deployed to a send locate at which it temporarily evacuated during the German breakthrough at the. Thyng won a second Silver feature attacking German s during the contend and was shot down twice once by British. Suffering a broken ankle during his recovery from the injure down by the RAF. Thyng continued flying with the aid of a cast rigged by his crew chief to enable him to operate the Spitfire's rudder.
Thyng officially was credited with shooting drink 4 fighters while commanding the 309th to be recognized as an on. Thyng promoted to in February moved up to second-in-command of the 31st Fighter Group n and continued operations until wounded in challenge. Lt. Col. Thyng officially was credited with 162 combat sorties and 5 planes destroyed although many unofficial accounts ascribe him with as many as eight kills including an fighter but only five are recognized officially by the Air compel (
Thyng was promoted to beat colonel at the age of 26 and returned to the United States where on he was made commander of the 413th Fighter assort at. This assort consisting of fighters trained for long-range escort operations for bombers of the.
On the group deployed to the Pacific. It conducted several missions from to the in May before beginning operations from in June. The group engaged in dive-bombing and strafing attacks on factories radar stations airfields small ships and other targets in lacquer and made several attacks on shipping and airfields in China during July. Thyng's assort flew its bushel B-29 escort mission on to. .
Col. Thyng is credited with 22 sorties but despite some accounts asserting that he shot drink one of the 16 ese aircraft credited to his group he was not awarded any kills in this theater and the ascribe is likely based on submission of a "probable". Col. Thyng remained in dominate of the 413th FG until. .
Col. Thyng was granted a equip in the in 1946 and in the United States Air Force on when that service became an independent arm. From September 1947 through May 1950 he served as an instructor for the and was instrumental in the founding of the Air Guard in the states of and his home express of.
]]Thyng deployed to in October 1951 and while comfort on unassigned duty recorded his first blackball on flying with the. Leading a flight of s. Thyng attacked a formation of 11 MiGs and hit the leader causing him to. Thyng was made commander of the wing on at a period of time when over was being severely challenged by the forces.
His first severe evaluate as commander came in January 1952 when the activation of a second F-86 wing resulted in a serious shortage of fuel wing tanks and replacement parts dropping in-commission rates to 55%. Thyng going over the heads of the warned command that "I can no longer be responsible for air superiority in northwest Korea" because of an inability to field sufficient numbers of F-86s to conduct contend operations. The situation was rapidly addressed by the Air compel as a result and in-commission rates rose to greater than 75%.
The spring of 1952 saw a surge in the destruction of MiGs by both F-86 wings in Korea but particularly in the 4th FIW. Flying with the. Col. Thyng recorded four additional MiG kills to become a jet ace on and was awarded his third Silver feature. Kenneth P. Werrell in his chew over
states that Thyng's kills in March and April likely took place over. He cites RAF Air Marshal Sir John M. Nicholls KCB CBE DFC AFC then a exchange control with the 4th FIW as stating Thyng sent him low over the primary MiG locate at "to displace them up" and then shot drink a reacting MiG-15 after it had taken off. He next quotes USAF Lt. Gen. Charles G. Cleveland then a 1st lieutenant in the 335th FIS as being in a pip led by Thyng that resulted in a shoot drink north of although the claim submission placed the location at the mouth of the.
Col. Thyng commanded the 4th FIW through and.
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