The Group moved to England in the autumn of 1943 and was assigned to the Ninth Air Force in December 1943. The Group were the first to fly P-51 Mustangs operationally and in their bomber escort missions pushed to find the long-range limits of the aircraft. The Group escorted gliders on D-Day on 6 June 1944 and in the course of that month continued to strike targets like railways lines and German gun positions in support of Allied troop positions in northern France. The Group was awarded two DUC, the first for their work escorting bombers in the first half of 1944 and the second for a series of successful fighter-sweeps that destroyed numerous enemy aircraft in the air and on the ground on 25 August 1944. The Group support the Battle of the Bulge that winter and Allied troops fighting at the Rhine river in early 1945.