50TH FIGHTER GROUP SERVICE UNITS

UNITED STATES ARMY AIR FORCES

SQUADRON & COMPANY GUIDONS
50th FIGHTER GROUP • ATTACHED SERVICE UNITS

Service groups were configured to support two fighter groups, the usual practice being to split the group into two teams, each supporting a fighter group. Team B of the 327th Service Group, supporting the 50th Fighter Group, embodied Detachment A, Headquarters Squadron, 312th SG; the 88th Service Squadron; two quartermaster companies (supply & transportation; truck); two ordnance companies (vehicle maintenance & storage/issue of munitions; mobile repair & reclamation); a signal company; a military police detachment; a chemical detachment; and a separate engineer firefighting platoon. Some of the companies had one or more platoons detached.

Also assigned was the 83rd Airdrome Squadron. This was a deployable unit tasked to establish and operate forward airfields in France for the squadrons of the 48th FG. Since no station complement squadron was assigned to the 50th Fighter Group, the 83rd probably functioned in that capacirty.

Squadrons of service groups had guidons of the standard Air Corps pattern with the group number above and the squadron number below the branch insignia. Air Corps units other than squadrons of groups and separate squadrons had a guidon with the branch insignia only. Non-Air Corps companies assigned to service groups had branch-oriented guidons. Separate platoons were not authorized guidons. For detachments of squadrons and companies the guidon is depicted though in practice it would have remained with the headquarters element.

Credits: The drawings on this page are based on the specifications given in Army Regulation 260-10 dated 25 October 1944, a copy of which was kindly provided by FOTW Mailing List member Joseph McMillan. Order of battle information was taken from Dr. Leo Niehorster’s outstanding and essential website, World War II Armed Forces: Orders of Battle and Organizations.