Being on location for such a length of time gave rise to a great deal of ingenuity particularly on the part of the enlisted ranks since they were on site seemingly forever. Bob Naismith, one of the original 71st pilots, passing Salsola in a P-51, stopped in for a visit with Bucky Harris, C.O. of the 94th, and two of his ex-crew chiefs, 'Cajun' Johnson and 'Mouse' Fredrici. Fredrici in particular, seems to have been a genius at fabrication. The following is Naismith's description of Fredrici's living quarters:

"He had designed a structure around the configuration of engine packing boxes. He had rigged a P-38 window crank beside his bunk and attached it by cable to a hinged window on the opposite side of his room so that he could control ventilation without getting out of the sack. He had positioned two drop tanks on scaffolding at roof level on the outside. One held aviation fuel with a line leading to an oil drum furnace with a heater vent leading inside and with a petcock controllable from his bunk. The other tank was for fresh water. One line from it went through a coil inside his furnace then through the side of his house; the other went directly in. Fredrici had set up a wash stand against one wall. Central was his basin, a landing light reflector from a P-38 with a drain hose connected to the lamp insert hole. Feeding into the basin were two more petcocks, one for hot water, one for cold."

Mouse was also my crew chief. Bob Naismith told me that he had spent a lot of time after the war trying to locate Mouse who lived in the LA area but never was able to locate him. His father was reputed to have been a junk dealer. From what I have seen of Mouse's ability to put apparently worthless things to good use, I am convinced that he learned a lot from his father. He was a genius at "making do with what was available".
He did many extra things for me as he did for his other pilots who came before and after me. He and his crew kept his airplane, a P38 that was merely on loan to his pilots, in the best of shape. They would be out working when the mud was up to your ankles, when a merciless sun beat down, and when last minute repairs had to be done by flashlight.
About halfway through my combat missions, I test flew a new P38 that had arrived at the 71st. It had the first low fuel warning light that I had ever seen in a P38. This was a great innovation because when you were jumped and belly tanks were jettisoned, a pilot more often than not would forget to switch to mains from the belly tanks. Your first warning was a sputtering engine. In the excitement, one did not always do the right thing.
When I landed and discussed the flight, I mentioned to Mouse what the low fuel warning lights would do for you and that it was shame they had not been installed on my P38. He said nothing.
I was scheduled for a mission the next day at first light and shortly after I sat in the cockpit before the mission to check out the instruments, I noticed a brand new set of low fuel warning lights! It has been more than fifty-five years since that morning, but I continue to remember his dedication in working all night to install them. I never asked where he had gotten the material, and I doubt he would have told me.
Among the many other accomplishments was his solution to the gun camera problem. The engineers who developed the P38 put the gun camera right next to the four 50 caliber machine guns and the 20mm cannon in the nose of the aircraft. It was obvious they weren't thinking because the vibrations of the guns firing caused wild gyrations of the camera. This made for very poor pictures and made it difficult to score claims. This problem existed for probably three or four years before someone mentioned the vibration problem to Mouse at the time the 1st was flying out of Foggia, Italy. From what I am told, he fabricated a solution, installed it under the wing away from the guns and wired it up in just a few days. All the P38 groups later adopted his retrofit. I believe, but am not certain that he was put in for a commendation. It might be worth the research to find out. No one knew Fredrici's first name nor why he was called 'Mouse', but Fredrici is a name so uncommon that it could probably be traced.

From what I can remember, Mouse Fredricy's first name was Frederico. He also modified his aircraft and mine to drop the bombs or tanks manually. He ran small control cables from the bomb shackles along the underside of the wing when a screw was removed from the windshield mounting screws, ran inside the cockpit to a T handle on each side of the windshield. This gave the pilot another way to get rid of drop tanks or bombs if the electrical system failed. Lee Setty