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A2 jacket for flying ace...true or not true?

zhz44

Active Member
I've been told a very interesting story about A2 today. But I am not sure if it is right or not. So can anyone confirm this story?

Here it is: I've been told that during WWII, in USAAF, the A2 issued to flying ace (scoring more than 5) is in red knits and red lining. Regardless of contract. Is this true or not? I can not find any reference of it...so anyone can help?
 

DiamondDave

Well-Known Member
zhz44 said:
I've been told a very interesting story about A2 today. But I am not sure if it is right or not. So can anyone confirm this story?

Here it is: I've been told that during WWII, in USAAF, the A2 issued to flying ace (scoring more than 5) is in red knits and red lining. Regardless of contract. Is this true or not? I can not find any reference of it...so anyone can help?


While I can see how that is cool to think, it is patently untrue.

A-2 jackets were issued by the AAF, and supposedly remained the property of the Army. Jackets were issued during training, long before the "Ace" in question had proven his chops, as it were.

Even the contractors making the jackets, had no control over the knits, or any other parts that they were sent by the gov't. These all came from separate contractors for each part. And though the Army had certain controls in place, as production ramped up, different colors of knits especially were found acceptable by the Army and sent out to the contractors. This explains how part of a contract will have one knot color and another color also can be seen.

Thread was another thing that this happened to. Almost any knit or dyed part is not an exact science in its making, and were made within a range of colors that was ok'd by the Army.

Sorry to debunk this one, as I said it would be cool.

DD

PS. Now all of that said, some "Aces" did go to tailors and have caps, as well as Ike jackets relined in red to show a bit of status, but these items were owned by them individually, and they could do what they wanted wth them. At least quietly.
 

zhz44

Active Member
Thanks Dave.
I learned some from Andrew, the flying ace can re-line their jacket with red-silk. But red knits never happened.
 

Roughwear

Well-Known Member
zhz44 said:
Thanks Dave.
I learned some from Andrew, the flying ace can re-line their jacket with red-silk. But red knits never happened.

Here is my post from the FL.

Ace pilots could have their existing A2s re-lined with red silk. However judging by surviving A2s worn by Ace pilots this rarely happened. I have not heard about changing the knits to red and suspect someone has confused an Ace wearing an Aero A2 with factory installed berry knits with replacing them on achieving Ace status!
 

Phantomfixer

New Member
I read that the 56th FG was doing the red lining thing...can't recall the book...one of many read over 40 years....
 

Bombing IP

Well-Known Member
The jacket would slide on beautiful with a silk lining ,but then we would not have enough parachutes


Bip
 

unclegrumpy

Well-Known Member
Phantomfixer said:
I read that the 56th FG was doing the red lining thing...can't recall the book...one of many read over 40 years....
I think this was with their Ike jackets, or to be more accurate, the British Battle Dress inspired short waisted jackets that were worn and purchased in England in 1942 to early 1944 before the US "Ike" jackets came out.

The fancier, tailored versions of these British made jackets sometimes have red linings, and these have for years been rumored to have been made for "aces". While I think a lot of aces and fighter pilots wore them, largely because they were also the type that would spend the extra money for the nicest looking uniforms, over the years I have seen a number of these red lined jackets in groups owned by officers that were bomber pilots, navigators and bombardiers....which clearly could not be "aces".

The real answer I think is the English tailors had a lot of exceptionally high quality red material on hand that was not being used, because the red British dress uniforms were not being worn for the duration. And they had a severe shortage of any material that was green or khaki. I think the element of being able to up sell an American on the idea of a flashy red lining, charge him a little more for it, and get rid of some otherwise unsellable material, is probably getting closer to the truth.

That is not to say that in some instances, that some units did not use red linings to indicate the pilots that were aces, it just was not either exclusively or universally done.
 

MikeyB-17

Well-Known Member
Aero's silk lining wasn't really red-they swore years ago that the first A-2's had silk linings, and their linings were matched with what they said was a sample of one of these. It was nearer orange than red-I know, I had one.
 
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