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World War II
Discuss WWII and the era directly before and after the war from 1935-1949.
Hosted by Rowan Baylis
US Fighter Group Organization 8-9th AF
Photoguy1
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United States
Joined: September 29, 2016
KitMaker: 77 posts
AeroScale: 13 posts
Posted: Sunday, February 12, 2017 - 06:44 AM UTC
Hi folks,

Sorry if this is the wrong place for this but....

I was wondering about the organization of US Fighter Groups in NW Europe. Now I know that they are generally made up of 3 squadrons but when they flew together commanded by the Group Commander did he have a separate "flight'? More specifically would his aircraft carry the squadron codes of one of the three squadrons or something else? I know that in RAF fighter wings, particularly in the early (1941) days of the fighter sweeps into France the Wing Commander's Aircraft often carried a "squadron" code of the Wing Commander's initials (i.e. Douglas Bader used "DB", Robert Stanford Tuck used "RST", later Johnny Johnson used "JEJ", although officially this was frowned on). I don't think that I have ever seen an American Group Commander doing this. Was the Group Commander's aircraft "assigned" to a specific squadron for maintenance, etc. and maybe it had the codes of that squadron? Or was there a Headquarters flight?
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