Someone here was looking for ID to this one ????? not sure .....

Here's an image I found of a book cover with the image I've had in color leather patch, I recall someone was looking for this ID sometime ago, but don't recall what site etc, anyway here's what I found , hope it helps , It's Navy . BTW, "Pep" was the abbreviation of the pilot's name .

 

Fwiw, Pep is the common pet name for Giuseppe - Joseph in Italian.

 

"PeP" is an abbreviation turned into a name for something likely related to training. One of the "P"s I suspect is for pilot...but sometimes these things are not that easy.

The clue is in the second item, which looks like it was taken from a war time training manual. "Elmer" was the nickname for the Gyropilot or "auto pilot", and was named in honor of Elmer Sperry who's Company designed it. The goggle like thing on the guys head looks like a gyropilot...meaning instrument itself. Below is a picture from a wartime Sperry Company advertisement showing several, including the A-3.

Getting back to the patch...it does not look Navy to me. With the B-17 it looks AAF, and similar to other Army patches made for stateside training units. It also looks to me like it might be a Disney design.

My guess is the patch was most likely made for the technical representatives from the Sperry Company or possibly from the school or base they were at. Disney made patch designs for a number of aircraft companies, Beechcraft is one example you often see (pictured below). The Tech Reps and Civilian Instructors from the various companies often wore military uniforms...including A-2s...and had patches. I bet the PeP mystery could be solved if you could find copies of the Sperry training bulletins.

 

I got curious, and found a better picture of the booklet. What is neat is there was a shot of the back, which shows the Sperry Company logo. That does a better job of tying Elmer to the Sperry Company, and likely the patch design to the company as well.

 

Noticed something else with the better booklet picture...the patch clearly has a B-17, but the booklet a more generic transport...with basically a B-17 silhouette, but not the details. That makes sense given the company made instruments for many other aircraft and the Navy too. Thinking also the more generic booklet design plane is probably closer to the original studio creation....the Disney 831st BS patch below being another example of some artistic license with the aircraft.

I think that points to the patch being specifically modified to the B-17...and the Army. That in turn might be a clue to figuring out the meaning of "PeP". Still not an obvious answer, but it adds to the possibility of it referring at least partially to a place...a base, field, school or maybe a city.

 

Pep" by what I was told sometime ago is the personal name of a pilot abbreviated on the patch .

 

Could be, but I doubt it. That would mean that this is a one off personalized patch, and it does not appear to my eye to be that...especially considering both P's are capitalized (PeP).

There are a host of possibilities, but one worth keeping in the running, is the abbreviation is actually for "P P", and the small "e" was added to make something out of it that one could say.

 

Well I don't have the info handy , but the man who this specific patch came from told me his full name and the reason why it was PeP' anyway if I can find it again I'll post the info, this was some years ago ……… the patch itself was most likely made in more than one and this one just happened to get "personalized" , it's not like it wouldn't have been easy to do

 

Will look forward to seeing what you find. Always interesting to get the story behind these things.

I still think it is odd that if it is a name, it is not spelled "Pep" rather than "PeP"....but it could be a nickname...and that would open the door to more possibilities...especially if there is a story behind the nickname.