Wartime Wear of Patches and Name Tags on A-2s / B-10s

[TroopCarrier]

Hi all,

aside from the exceptions (which there always are - dependent on unit and/or individual Airmen), below is my non-scientific take on looking at wartime photos of A-2s and B-10s being worn. I am not a novice when it comes to studying wartime photos (although I am a "newbie" on this forum).

Thought it might be a fun different way of looking at the art work.

More common to less:

A-2s w/o patches or name tags (most common)
A-2s w/name tags, but no patches
A-2s w/patches, but no name tags
A-2s w/patches and name tags (very rare)

B-10s w/o patches or name tags (most common)
B-10s w/name tags, but no patches
B-10s w/patches, but no name tags (very rare)
B-10s w/patches and name tags (I've never seen one that I can recall)

Again, yes there are always the exceptions by unit and Airmen who bling out their jackets, but that is not what I'm looking to know.

Jeff

 

[Carl]

https://www.vintageleatherjackets.org/threads/b-10-in-rnzaf-raf-service.22024/

 

[Cocker]

A couple B-10 with patch and name tags from the 365th Fighter Group. There’s also a lot of patched A-2!

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[Cocker]

Lots of A-2 with patch and some with patch and nametag from the 365th again. All pics courtesy of « Thunderbolts of the Hell Hawks »:

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[Tom Bowers]

Different regions also had different proportions of decorated flight jackets.

For example, in the CBI patches were cheap and sewing was cheap too, so it was very very common to have patched jackets in the CBI including locally sourced name tags with chinese or indian characters.

In the 15th AF in Italy, again Italian made patches were cheap and really blinged out jackets were the norm.

In the 8th you regularly see the standard name tags but jackets tended to be painted

Like you say, hard to generalize but there it is

Tom Bowers

 

[TroopCarrier]

Roger all, but look at unit group shots of aircrew e.g., the color photo thread in gallery forum and most have little doodads added. And as I stated some groups wore them more than other and photogs like to take pictures of ind with them, all in my humble opinion the exception to the 1000s of aircrew. Look at Troop Carrier units and very little sqdn/grp patches however yes on the name tags. Photo of 4 FG from color pics thread.

I am going after the idea that we love in the present to see jackets with doodads, give a specificity and coolness factor to them.

 

[Cocker]

Troopcarrier, agreed that painted/adorned jackets were more of the oddity than the norm, depending on the unit. But you stated you’ve never seen a B-10 with patch and name tape, now you have [emoji39].

Regarding the 365th, the patch was designed by late ´44 when stationed in Belgium, and the books states that almost every pilot in the outfit received 2, 1 for his jacket and 1 as a souvenir. On the pictures after that date, almost 1 out of 2 pilot is seen with a patched jacket.


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