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Your cart is empty. 494th Fighter Squadron Patch - With hook and loop
Pilots and Crew! Enjoy this beautifully embroidered 494th Fighter Squadron Patch. You love wearing or displaying this patch!
4 inches
Embroidered/Hook and Loop
US Veteran-Owned Business
ROYAL AIR FORCE LAKENHEATH, England -- A 494th Fighter Squadron F-15E Strike Eagle takes to the skies en route to a deployment in support of Operation Iraqi Freedom, July 14. (U.S. Air Force photo by Staff Sgt. William Greer)
World War II
Activated as a Southeastern Air District Army Air Corps training squadron, equipped with a variety of second-line aircraft, both single and twin engine, preparing its pilots and maintenance crews for eventual combat. After the Pearl Harbor Attack, the squadron flew antisubmarine patrols from, March-April 1942. Resumed aircrew training, many of the group's members went on to serve in squadrons stationed in Europe and the Pacific theaters.
Eventually coming under the AAF III Fighter Command in 1944, trained replacement pilots with P-47 Thunderbolts, Converted in January 1944 to an operational fighter squadron with the end of RTU training. Deployed to the European Theater of Operations (ETO), being assigned to the IX Fighter Command in England, March 1944.
Almost immediately after their arrival, the squadron began a rigorous training program, flying dive-bombing, glide bombing, night flying, low-level navigation, smoke laying, reconnaissance, and patrol convoy sorties. Over the next two months, the number of sorties steadily increased and the squadron flew its first combat mission on 20 April 1944—an uneventful fighter sweep of the occupied French coast.
Assisted the Normandy invasion by dropping bombs on bridges and gun positions, attacking rail lines and trains, and providing visual reconnaissance reports. Moved to France in mid-June 1944, supporting ground operations of Allied forces moving east across northern France
