Unit identification aircraft markings

USAAF unit identification aircraft markings, commonly called "tail markings" after their most frequent location, were numbers, letters, geometric symbols, and colors painted onto the tails (vertical stabilizer fins), wings, or fuselages of the combat aircraft (primarily bomber

Bomber

A bomber is a military aircraft designed to attack ground and sea targets, by dropping bombs on them, or – in recent years – by launching cruise missiles at them.-Classifications of bombers:...

s) of the United States Army Air Forces

United States Army Air Forces

The United States Army Air Forces was the military aviation arm of the United States of America during and immediately after World War II, and the direct predecessor of the United States Air Force....

during the Second World War. The purpose of these markings was to provide a means of rapid identification of the unit to which an aircraft was assigned. Variations of these markings continue to be used in the United States Air Force

United States Air Force

The United States Air Force is the aerial warfare service branch of the United States Armed Forces and one of the American uniformed services. Initially part of the United States Army, the USAF was formed as a separate branch of the military on September 18, 1947 under the National Security Act of...

in the form of tail code

Tail Code

Tail codes are the markings usually on the vertical stabilizer of U.S. military aircraft that help to identify the aircraft's unit and/or base assignment and occasionally other information that is not unique. This is not the same as the serial number, bureau number, or aircraft registration which...

s identifying operational wings.

Overview

At the beginning of the war the USAAF was a small service in comparison to the air forces of the combatants fighting since 1939. Its initial deployments to the European

European Theater of Operations

The European Theater of Operations, United States Army was a United States Army formation which directed U.S. Army operations in parts of Europe from 1942 to 1945. It referred to Army Ground Forces, United States Army Air Forces, and Army Service Forces operations north of Italy and the...

and African

North African campaign

During the Second World War, the North African Campaign took place in North Africa from 10 June 1940 to 13 May 1943. It included campaigns fought in the Libyan and Egyptian deserts and in Morocco and Algeria and Tunisia .The campaign was fought between the Allies and Axis powers, many of whom had...

theaters in 1942 involved relatively small numbers of fighter and bomber aircraft and no system of Group

Group (air force unit)

A group is a military aviation unit, a component of military organization and a military formation. Usage of the terms group and wing differ from one country to another, as well as different branches of a defence force, in some cases...

identification was used. Some aircraft were identified by numbers painted on their fuselage.

The USAAF quickly adopted the system used by the Royal Air Force

Royal Air Force

The Royal Air Force is the aerial warfare service branch of the British Armed Forces. Formed on 1 April 1918, it is the oldest independent air force in the world...

to identify squadrons, using fuselage codes of two letters (later letter-numeral when squadrons became too numerous) to denote a squadron

Squadron (aviation)

A squadron in air force, army aviation or naval aviation is mainly a unit comprising a number of military aircraft, usually of the same type, typically with 12 to 24 aircraft, sometimes divided into three or four flights, depending on aircraft type and air force...

and a third single letter to identify the aircraft within the squadron. However by 1944 the USAAF in Europe had grown to nearly 60 groups of heavy bombers (240 squadrons) and thirty groups of fighters (90 squadrons), and this system became impractical in combat after the summer of 1943, when the first tail system appeared.

To facilitate control among thousands of bombers, the USAAF devised a system of aircraft tail markings to identify groups and wings. Both the Eighth

Eighth Air Force

The Eighth Air Force is a numbered air force of the United States Air Force Global Strike Command . It is headquartered at Barksdale Air Force Base, Louisiana....

and Fifteenth Air Force

Fifteenth Air Force

The Fifteenth Expeditionary Mobility Task Force is one of two EMTFs assigned to the United States Air Force Air Mobility Command . It is headquartered at Travis Air Force Base, California....

s used a system of large, readily-identifiable geometric symbols combined with alphanumeric

Alphanumeric

Alphanumeric is a combination of alphabetic and numeric characters, and is used to describe the collection of Latin letters and Arabic digits or a text constructed from this collection. There are either 36 or 62 alphanumeric characters. The alphanumeric character set consists of the numbers 0 to...

s to designate groups when all USAAF bombers were painted olive drab in color, but as unpainted ("natural metal finish") aircraft became policy after April 1944, the system in use became difficult to read because of glare and lack of contrast. The system then evolved gradually to one using large bands of color in conjunction with symbols, the symbols identifying the wing and the color the group.

The Twentieth Air Force

Twentieth Air Force

The Twentieth Air Force is a numbered air force of the United States Air Force Global Strike Command . It is headquartered at F.E. Warren Air Force Base, Wyoming.20 AF's primary mission is Intercontinental Ballistic Missile operations...

, eventually operating 20 groups and 1,000 bombers, also adopted a tail identification system in 1945. The five numbered air forces fighting in the Pacific War

Pacific War

The Pacific War, also sometimes called the Asia-Pacific War refers broadly to the parts of World War II that took place in the Pacific Ocean, its islands, and in East Asia, then called the Far East...

also used tail markings, but unsystematically within the various air forces, as squadron identifiers.

Eighth Air Force tail markings

The first Eighth Air Force aircraft to receive unit markings were the Spitfire

Supermarine Spitfire

The Supermarine Spitfire is a British single-seat fighter aircraft that was used by the Royal Air Force and many other Allied countries throughout the Second World War. The Spitfire continued to be used as a front line fighter and in secondary roles into the 1950s...

s of the 4th and 31st Fighter Groups training with RAF Fighter Command

RAF Fighter Command

RAF Fighter Command was one of three functional commands of the Royal Air Force. It was formed in 1936 to allow more specialised control of fighter aircraft. It served throughout the Second World War, gaining recognition in the Battle of Britain. The Command continued until 17 November 1943, when...

in September 1942. The markings were two-letter fuselage

Fuselage

The fuselage is an aircraft's main body section that holds crew and passengers or cargo. In single-engine aircraft it will usually contain an engine, although in some amphibious aircraft the single engine is mounted on a pylon attached to the fuselage which in turn is used as a floating hull...

squadron codes located on one side of the national insignia and a single letter aircraft code on the other side. However sixteen squadrons of B-17s of the new VIII Bomber Command

VIII Bomber Command

The VIII Bomber Command is an inactive United States Army Air Forces unit that is better known as the later appellation Eighth Air Force, as was popularized in post-World War II filmsand is frequently called the First Eighth Air Force by its veterans and successors in the services.The command was...

, beginning in December 1942, also received this identification system, which continued in the spring and summer of 1943 when VIII Bomber Command quadrupled in size.

However the size of the Allied air forces began to exhaust possible two-letter combinations, and made difficult the timely assembly of heavy bomber tactical formations. In June 1943 VIII Bomber Command introduced the use of a geometric symbol painted on either side of a bomber's vertical fin to denote a bombardment wing (later division) identification marking. These devices were white in color and 80 inches in diameter. A triangle

Triangle

A triangle is one of the basic shapes of geometry: a polygon with three corners or vertices and three sides or edges which are line segments. A triangle with vertices A, B, and C is denoted ....

denoted the B-17 1st Bombardment Wing (later 1st Air Division), a circle

Circle

A circle is a simple shape of Euclidean geometry consisting of those points in a plane that are a given distance from a given point, the centre. The distance between any of the points and the centre is called the radius....

the B-24 2nd Bombardment Wing, and a square

Square (geometry)

In geometry, a square is a regular quadrilateral. This means that it has four equal sides and four equal angles...

the B-17 4th Bombardment Wing (later 3rd Air Division). The B-26

B-26 Marauder

The Martin B-26 Marauder was a World War II twin-engine medium bomber built by the Glenn L. Martin Company. First used in the Pacific Theater in early 1942, it was also used in the Mediterranean Theater and in Western Europe....

medium bombers of the 3rd Bombardment Wing did not use this scheme.

Groups were identified by a letter superimposed on the symbol. At first letters were yellow in color, but after only a few had been so painted, the color was changed in July 1943 to insignia blue for easier reading. On unpainted aircraft the colors were reversed, with a white letter superimposed on a black symbol. Bombers also carried the symbol on the upper surface of the aircraft's right wingtip. Although issued group and squadron codes by the Eighth Air Force, the 93rd Combat Bomb Wing of the 3rd Bomb Division displayed neither until after the end of hostilities in Europe (noted in the table below with an asterisk). The 385th Bomb Group was shifted to the 93rd CBW in October, 1944 after the wing converted from B-24 to B-17 aircraft, and it removed its fuselage and tail codes in accordance with wing policy.

8AF group letter identifiers

1st Bomb Wing/1st Air Division ("Triangle")

91 BG 91st Bomb Group The 91st Bomb Group was an air combat unit of the United States Army Air Forces during the Second World War. Classified as a heavy bombardment group, the 91st operated B-17 Flying Fortress aircraft and was known unofficially as "The Ragged Irregulars" or as "Wray's Ragged Irregulars", after the... - A	92 BG 92d Operations Group The 92d Air Refueling Wing is a United States Air Force unit assigned to the Air Mobility Command Eighteenth Air Force. It is stationed at Fairchild Air Force Base, Washington... - B	303 BG -C	305 BG 305th Operations Group The 305th Operations Group is a United States Air Force unit assigned to the 305th Air Mobility Wing. It is stationed at Joint Base McGuire-Dix-Lakehurst, New Jersey.... -G
306 BG 306th Flying Training Group The 306th Flying Training Group is a unit of the United States Air Force, assigned to the Air Education and Training Command's Nineteenth Air Force... -H	351 BG 351st Bomb Group The 351st Operations Group is an inactive unit of the United States Air Force. Its last assignment was with to the 351st Missile Wing, being stationed at Whiteman Air Force Base, Missouri. It was inactivated on 31 July 1995.... - J	379 BG - K	381 BG 381st Training Group The United States Air Force 381st Training Group at Vandenberg AFB, California provides training for the nation's space and intercontinental ballistic missile operations and ICBM and Air Launched Missile maintenance forces... - L
384 BG - P	401 BG - S	457 BG 457th Air Expeditionary Group The United States Air Force's 457th Air Expeditionary Group is a provisional United States Air Force unit assigned to the Air Combat Command. The 457 AEG may be activated or inactivated at any time.... - U	398 BG 398th Air Expeditionary Group The 398th Air Expeditionary Group is a provisional United States Air Force unit assigned to the United States Air Forces in Europe. The 398 AEG may be activated or inactivated at any time.... - W

2d Bomb Wing/2d Air Division ("Circle")

44 BG - A	93 BG 93d Operations Group The 93d Operations Group is an inactive United States Air Force unit. Its last assignment was with the 93d Air Control Wing, stationed at Moody Air Force Base, Georgia... - B	389 BG - C	392 BG - D
445 BG 445th Operations Group The 445th Operations Group is the flying component of the 445th Airlift Wing, assigned to the United States Air Force Reserve Fourth Air Force. The group is stationed at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, Ohio.... - F	446 BG 446th Operations Group The 446th Operations Group is a United States Air Force Reserve unit assigned to the 446th Airlift Wing. It is stationed at McChord Air Force Base, Washington.... - H	448 BG - I	453 BG - J
458 BG - K	466 BG - L	467 BG - P	492 BG - U
489 BG - W (wings)	491 BG - Z (wings)

4th Bomb Wing/3d Air Division ("Square")

94 BG 94th Operations Group The 94th Operations Group is the flying component of the 94th Airlift Wing, assigned to the United States Air Force Reserve. The group is stationed at Dobbins Air Reserve Base, Georgia.... - A	95 BG 95th Air Base Wing The 95th Air Base Wing is a United States Air Force unit assigned to the Air Force Materiel Command Air Force Flight Test Center. The unit is stationed at Edwards Air Force Base, California, and is the host unit at Edwards.... - B	96 BG 96th Air Base Wing The 96th Air Base Wing is a United States Air Force unit assigned to the Air Combat Command Air Armament Center. It is stationed at Eglin Air Force Base, Florida... - C	100 BG 100th Air Refueling Wing The 100th Air Refueling Wing is a United States Air Force unit assigned to the United States Air Forces in Europe Third Air Force. It is stationed at RAF Mildenhall, England. It is also the host wing at RAF Mildenhall.... - D
385 BG - G	388 BG 388th Operations Group The 388th Operations Group is the flying component of the 388th Fighter Wing, assigned to the Air Combat Command Twelfth Air Force. The group is stationed at Hill Air Force Base, Utah.... - H	390 BG - J	447th BG - K
452 BG 452d Operations Group The 452d Operations Group is the flying component of the 452d Air Mobility Wing, assigned to the United States Air Force Reserve. The group is stationed at March Air Reserve Base, California.... - L	34 BG 34th Training Wing The 34th Training Wing is a wing of the United States Air Force based at the Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs, Colorado. The commander of the 34th Training Wing is dual-hatted as the Commandant of Cadets at the Academy.... ¹ - S	486 BG¹ - O	486 BG° - W
487 BG¹ - P	490 BG¹ - T	493 BG¹ - X

¹Markings as B-24 groups only

°B-17 markings

Color identifiers

These markings were effective within a mile of the viewer, but as the numbers of groups increased from sixteen to forty, assembly difficulties increased. In February 1944 the USAAF decided to discontinue further camouflage

Camouflage

Camouflage is a method of concealment that allows an otherwise visible animal, military vehicle, or other object to remain unnoticed, by blending with its environment. Examples include a leopard's spotted coat, the battledress of a modern soldier and a leaf-mimic butterfly...

painting of its aircraft, and the 2nd Bomb Division devised a system for its B-24s whereby the entire tail fin was painted in a color (each of its five combat wings was assigned a color) and a black or white band placed across the fin either vertically, horizontally, or diagonally to identify the group within that wing. The 93rd CBW of the 3rd Air Division, which operated B-24s from May to September 1944, also adopted a color system in June.
The first color markings for B-17s appeared in July 1944 when the 1st Combat Bomb Wing (91st, 381st, and 398th Bomb Groups) painted the empennage

Stabilizer (aircraft)

In aviation, a stabilizer provides stability when the aircraft is flying straight, and the airfoil of the horizontal stabilizer balances the forces acting on the aircraft....

of their airplanes bright red. The remainder of the 1st Air Division began using color schemes in September, but each combat wing adopted a different method, depicted in the link below under "External links".

The 3rd Air Division, once converted to an all-B-17 command, followed suit in the winter of 1944-1945, employing elaborate schemes which included colored chevrons and bands on the aircraft wings that required months of labor to convert all its aircraft. Those schemes are depicted in the B-17 link below.

Fifteenth Air Force tail markings

The Fifteenth Air Force had four groups of B-17's and eleven of B-24's when it first marked its aircraft for unit identification.

B-17 markings

The B-17's of the 5th Bomb Wing used a simple symbol system on their tail fins, adopted in the fall of 1943 before becoming part of the Fifteenth Air Force (triangle for 97th BG, square 301st BG, diamond 99th BG, and circle 2nd BG). When two additional groups joined the wing in April 1944, the wing then identified its groups by a letter Y on the uppermost area of the tail fin, superimposed on the symbol previously used (in a manner similar to the system used by the Eighth) with the new 463rd BG using a cone-shaped device and the 483rd BG a five-pointed star

Star

A star is a massive, luminous sphere of plasma held together by gravity. At the end of its lifetime, a star can also contain a proportion of degenerate matter. The nearest star to Earth is the Sun, which is the source of most of the energy on Earth...

that was displayed below the Y instead of underlying it.

First B-24 scheme

The more numerous B-24 groups used a standardized scheme for its four bomb wings. On outer tail fins, above and below the aircraft serial, two white circles were painted. In the upper circle was painted a geometric symbol in black denoting the wing, with a triangle for the 47th Bomb Wing, a square for the 55th, a diamond for the 304th, and a circle for the 49th. In practice that of the 49th, because of the type of stencil

Stencil

A stencil is a thin sheet of material, such as paper, plastic, or metal, with letters or a design cut from it, used to produce the letters or design on an underlying surface by applying pigment through the cut-out holes in the material. The key advantage of a stencil is that it can be reused to...

used, resembled the concentric ring bull's-eye of a target. The lower circle contained one of the numerals 1 through 4, painted in black, denoting the group.

15AF B-24 group numeral identifiers:

47th Bomb Wing (triangle):

98th BG - 1, 376th BG - 2, 449th BG - 3, 450th BG - 4

49th Bomb Wing (circle/bulls-eye):

451st BG - 1, 461st BG (second wing assignment, 1944-45) - 2

55th Bomb Wing (square):

460th BG - 1, 461st BG (first wing assignment, 1944) - 2

304th Bomb Wing (diamond):

454th BG - 1, 455th BG - 2, 456th BG

456th Bomb Group

The 456th Bomb Group was an air combat unit of the United States Army Air Forces during the Second World War. A "heavy bombardment group," the 456th operated B-24 Liberator aircraft and was known unofficially as "Steed's Flying Colts," after its commander.The 456th Bomb Group flew 249 bombing...

- 3, 459th BG - 4

Second B-24 scheme

In June, 1944, the Fifteenth Air Force adopted a color-symbol scheme to identify its groups and wings. The 5th Bomb Wing painted the elevator

Elevator (aircraft)

Elevators are flight control surfaces, usually at the rear of an aircraft, which control the aircraft's orientation by changing the pitch of the aircraft, and so also the angle of attack of the wing. In simplified terms, they make the aircraft nose-up or nose-down...

s and rudders of its B-17s various colors but otherwise maintained its marking scheme. The B-24 wings adopted a method by which color and symbol placement would identify its groups:

47th Bomb Wing: Diagonally divided tail fins and painted the lower half in yellow and/or black, with the 98th BG using horizontal stripes, the 376th BG in black-only, the 449th BG in half-yellow half-black, and the 450th BG in vertical stripes. The former triangle-circle symbol was retained in the upper half. Late in the war the upper rear stabilizer was painted black with a longitudinal yellow band in the center except for the elevators.

49th Bomb Wing: Upper half of the fin painted red, and a red symbol in the lower half; used the same scheme on the upper rear stabilizer with the red on the right side and the symbol on the left. 451st BG: circle; 461st BG: horizontal bar; 484th BG: bow-tie.

55th Bomb Wing: Large black square in upper half of the fin, lower half painted black with a yellow symbol superimposed. 460th BG: ring; 464th BG: vertical bar; 465th BG: horizontal stripe; 485th BG: a saltire
Saltire
A saltire, or Saint Andrew's Cross, is a heraldic symbol in the form of a diagonal cross or letter ex . Saint Andrew is said to have been martyred on such a cross....

. The rear stabilizer generally displayed only the black square outlined in yellow until late in the war, when the entire surface was painted yellow except for the elevators.

304th Bomb Wing: Large black diamond in the upper half; lower half painted to group color. The rear stabilizer was painted the group color on the left half and had a diamond on the right. 454th BG: white; 455th BG: yellow; 456th BG: red; 459th BG: black-and-yellow checkerboard

Checkerboard

A checkerboard or chequerboard is a board of chequered pattern on which English draughts is played. It is an 8×8 board and the 64 squares are of alternating dark and light color, often red and black....

Twentieth Air Force tail markings

For a period of six months the Twentieth Air Force

Twentieth Air Force

operated two bomber commands, each with a different method of identifying its B-29 Superfortress

B-29 Superfortress

The B-29 Superfortress is a four-engine propeller-driven heavy bomber designed by Boeing that was flown primarily by the United States Air Forces in late-World War II and through the Korean War. The B-29 was one of the largest aircraft to see service during World War II...

groups. From April 1945 forward all twenty groups, organized into five bomb wings, were assigned to XXI Bomber Command, which standardized its markings.

XX Bomber Command

The 58th Bomb Wing had been the first to deploy, beginning combat in June 1944 with a only a handful of B-29's painted in the standard olive drab camouflage. Each of its four groups employed a different method while based in the China Burma India Theater as part of XX Bomber Command. The 40th BG painted four horizontal stripes across the upper tail fin with the letter identification of the airplane below it. The 444th BG numbered its aircraft and placed it within a large blue diamond outlined in yellow on the tail fin. The 462nd BG painted its rudder

Rudder

A rudder is a device used to steer a ship, boat, submarine, hovercraft, aircraft or other conveyance that moves through a medium . On an aircraft the rudder is used primarily to counter adverse yaw and p-factor and is not the primary control used to turn the airplane...

s but otherwise did not designate the group. The 468th painted two diagonal stripes on the rudders of its aircraft. When the wing and its groups transferred to Tinian in April 1945 the 58th Wing changed to a letter-symbol system.

XXI Bomber Command

The 73rd Bomb Wing began combat in October 1944 from Isley Field, Saipan

Saipan

Saipan is the largest island of the United States Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands , a chain of 15 tropical islands belonging to the Marianas archipelago in the western Pacific Ocean with a total area of . The 2000 census population was 62,392...

, and marked its aircraft similarly to that of the Fifteenth Air Force 55th CBW. A letter denoting the group was painted on the upper third of the tail fin, with a square symbol in the center, and an aircraft identifier, known as the "victor number," in the lower third. Aircraft commonly used their tail identifiers as radio voice calls (call sign

Call sign

In broadcasting and radio communications, a call sign is a unique designation for a transmitting station. In North America they are used as names for broadcasting stations...

s), i.e. Lucky Irish (serial 42-24622) of the 870th Bomb Squadron, 497th Bomb Group (lost November 24, 1944, over Tokyo

Tokyo

, ; officially , is one of the 47 prefectures of Japan. Tokyo is the capital of Japan, the center of the Greater Tokyo Area, and the largest metropolitan area of Japan. It is the seat of the Japanese government and the Imperial Palace, and the home of the Japanese Imperial Family...

) had the voice call "A Square 26".

The 313th Bomb Wing moved to North Field, Tinian

Tinian

Tinian is one of the three principal islands of the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands.-Geography:Tinian is about 5 miles southwest of its sister island, Saipan, from which it is separated by the Saipan Channel. It has a land area of 39 sq.mi....

, in January 1945. Its aircraft used a system identical to that of the 73rd Wing, with its symbol a triangle.

The 314th Bomb Wing was based at North Field, Guam

Guam

Guam is an organized, unincorporated territory of the United States located in the western Pacific Ocean. It is one of five U.S. territories with an established civilian government. Guam is listed as one of 16 Non-Self-Governing Territories by the Special Committee on Decolonization of the United...

beginning in January 1945, with some of its groups beginning combat operations in February. In order to quickly mark its increasing numbers of aircraft, the 314th Wing painted 96-inch black boxes on the tail fins and stenciled the group identifier, either M, O, P or K in BMF 72-inch block letters. This was later infilled with a bright orange/yellow in mid summer 1945.

The 58th Bomb Wing was relocated from India

India

India , officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with over 1.2 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world...

to West Field, Tinian, in April 1945, and the 315th Wing began arriving at Northwest Field, Guam, in May. The earlier system of marking aircraft was discarded in April by both the 73rd and 313th Wings. The 73rd Wing dropped all use of symbols and marked its aircraft with the group letter only, painted in 126 inches (3,200.4 mm) black lettering. Except for the 314th Wing, which maintained its markings throughout the war, the remaining wings of the XXI Bomber Command used 126 inches (3,200.4 mm) symbols in black to outline 63 inches (1,600.2 mm) group letters. The symbol outline of the 313th Wing was a circle, that of the 58th Wing a triangle, and that of the 315th Wing a diamond.

20AF group letter identifiers:

58th Bomb Wing (triangle outline symbol):

40th BG - S, 444th BG - N, 462nd BG - U, 468th BG - I

73rd Bomb Wing (square outline symbol, 10.5-foot letters):

497th BG - A, 498th BG - T, 499th BG - V, 500th BG - Z

313th Bomb Wing (circle outline symbol):

6th BG - R, 9th BG - X, 504th BG - E, 505th BG (January to March) - K, (April to September) - W

314th Bomb Wing (solid black square):


19 BG	29th BG	39th BG	330th BG 330th Bombardment Group The 330th Bombardment Group was a bomber group of the United States Army Air Forces during World War II. It constituted on 1 July 1942 at Salt Lake City Army Air Base, Utah. The unit fought in the Pacific Theater...
M	O	P	K

315th Bomb Wing (diamond outline):

16th BG - B, 331st BG - L, 501st BG - Y, 502nd BG - H

509th Composite Group

The 509th Composite Group

509th Composite Group

The 509th Composite Group was a United States Army Air Forces unit created during World War II, and tasked with operational deployment of nuclear weapons...

, sent to Tinian

Tinian

to drop the atomic bomb, was assigned to the 313th Bomb Wing. Consisting of a single squadron, its tail marking was a circle outline around an arrowhead

Arrowhead

An arrowhead is a tip, usually sharpened, added to an arrow to make it more deadly or to fulfill some special purpose. Historically arrowheads were made of stone and of organic materials; as human civilization progressed other materials were used...

pointing forward, but while flying combat missions its fifteen B-29's used the tail markings of other groups and wings as a security measure. Richard H. Campbell, in The Silverplate Bombers, reports that XXI Bomber Command feared that Japanese survivors on Tinian were observing 509th operations, which had been quite extensive before August 1, and reporting them by clandestine radio to Tokyo

Tokyo

. (pg. 219, Chapter 3 note 6)

The 509th repainted the tail identifier with those of four XXI Bomber Command groups already in combat, and altered victor numbers to avoid misidentification with actual aircraft already bearing the numbers. New victor numbers 82, 89, 90, and 91 (including the Enola Gay
Enola Gay
Enola Gay is a Boeing B-29 Superfortress bomber, named after Enola Gay Tibbets, mother of the pilot, then-Colonel Paul Tibbets. On August 6, 1945, during the final stages of World War II, it became the first aircraft to drop an atomic bomb as a weapon of war...

) carried the markings of the 6th Bomb Group (Circle R); victors 71, 72, 73, and 84 those of the 497th Bomb Group (large "A"); victors 77, 85, 86, and 88 those of the 444th Bomb Group (triangle N); and victors 83, 94, and 95 those of the 39th Bomb Group (square P).

Other air forces in the Pacific

With only eleven heavy bomb groups distributed among five numbered air forces in the Pacific

Pacific War

and CBI

China Burma India Theater of World War II

China Burma India Theater was the name used by the United States Army for its forces operating in conjunction with British and Chinese Allied air and land forces in China, Burma, and India during World War II...

theaters, all B-24-equipped after mid-1943, unit tail markings were much less systematized than in other air forces. Identification of aircraft within specific squadrons was more meaningful than identification of groups.

The four groups of the Fifth Air Force

Fifth Air Force

The Fifth Air Force is a numbered air force of the United States Air Force Pacific Air Forces . It is headquartered at Yokota Air Base, Japan....

employed three different methods. The original two groups, the 43rd and 90th, bore the red-white-and-blue-striped rudder

Rudder

markings of the pre-war Air Corps, but the other two groups, appearing later, did not. The 43rd and 90th were differentiated from each other by their squadron markings; the 43rd placed large squadron insignia

Insignia

Insignia or insigne pl -nia or -nias : a symbol or token of personal power, status or office, or of an official body of government or jurisdiction...

on the fins, while the 90th painted the tail fins in squadron colors and superimposed a 72-inch Jolly Roger

Jolly Roger

The Jolly Roger is any of various flags flown to identify a ship's crew as pirates. The flag most commonly identified as the Jolly Roger today is the skull and crossbones, a flag consisting of a human skull above two long bones set in an x-mark arrangement on a black field. This design was used by...

symbol, emblematic of the group's nickname, on the painted fin. The 380th Bomb Group painted one quarter of its tail fins black for identification, with each squadron having a different quadrant. The 22nd Bomb Group, which converted from B-25 medium bombers in 1944, placed a 40 inches (1,016 mm) rectangle horizontally bisecting the tail fin, with each squadron having a different color.

All three groups of the Seventh Air Force

Seventh Air Force

The Seventh Air Force is a numbered air force of the United States Air Force Pacific Air Forces . It is headquartered at Osan Air Base, Republic of Korea....

used black symbols or stripes in various configurations, without any pattern. Identification of groups could be made only by memorization of symbols assigned to squadrons and knowledge of to what groups those squadrons were assigned.

The two groups of the Thirteenth Air Force

Thirteenth Air Force

The Thirteenth Air Force is a numbered air force of the United States Air Force Pacific Air Forces . It is headquartered at Hickam Air Force Base on the island of Oahu, Hawaii. 13 AF has never been stationed in the continental United States...

used completely different methods. The 5th Bomb Group used the same black geometric symbols as the Twentieth Air Force, a different symbol for each squadron, placed in the upper third of the tail fin. The 307th Bomb Group created a group symbol, a large blue circle containing a stylized "LR" (for "Long Rangers", the group nickname) in gold, and placed it on all their aircraft tails. The upper tips of the fins were painted different colors to identify its squadrons.

The two air forces in the Far East

Far East

The Far East is an English term mostly describing East Asia and Southeast Asia, with South Asia sometimes also included for economic and cultural reasons.The term came into use in European geopolitical discourse in the 19th century,...

, the Tenth Air Force

Tenth Air Force

The Tenth Air Force is a numbered air force of the United States Air Force Reserve Command . It is headquartered at Naval Air Station Joint Reserve Base Fort Worth, Texas....

and Fourteenth Air Force

Fourteenth Air Force

The Fourteenth Air Force is a numbered air force of the United States Air Force Space Command . It is headquartered at Vandenberg Air Force Base, California....

, each had only a single bomb group. The Tenth's 7th Bomb Group used a checkerboard pattern in either black-and-white or black-and-yellow on the rudder or part of the tail fin to identify its squadrons. The 308th Bomb Group of the Fourteenth Air Force used colored or striped rudders.

External links

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