page_title: 1st Operations Group
section_title: Markings and squadron codes
hierarchical_section_title: 1st Operations Group / History / 1st Fighter Group in World War II / Markings and squadron codes
caption_attribution_description: English: P-38F Lightning 41-7582, 27th Fighter Squadron, North Africa, 1943
context_page_description: The 1st Operations Group is the flying component of the 1st Fighter Wing, assigned to the USAF Air Combat Command. The group is stationed at Langley Air Force Base, Virginia. The 1st Operations Group is the oldest major air combat unit in the United States Air Force, being the successor organization of the 1st Pursuit Group. The 1st Pursuit Group was the first air combat group formed by the Air Service, American Expeditionary Force, on 5 May 1918.
  The Group was first organized at Croix de Metz Aerodrome, near Toul, France, as a result of the United States entry into World War I. As the 1st Pursuit Group it saw combat on the Western Front in France, and during World War II as the 1st Fighter Group combat in the Mediterranean Theater of Operations. Pilots of the 1st Group are credited by the USAF with destroying 554.33 aircraft and 50 balloons, and 36 pilots are recognized as being aces.
  The pilots of the 1st Group included Captain Eddie Rickenbacker, credited as the top scoring American ace in France during World War I. During World War II, the 1st FG was among the first groups deployed overseas in the summer of 1942.
context_section_description: In 1943 the squadrons of the 1st Fighter Group began to apply distinctive colors to their tailbooms, wingtips and propeller tips for rapid unit identification. This was in addition to the fuselage letter codes assigned to the group by the Eighth Air Force which it continued to use when reassigned to the Twelfth Air Force in November 1942. The 27th FS used red (squadron code HV, radio callsign PETDOG), the 71st FS used white (squadron code LM, callsign CRAGMORE), and the 94th FS used yellow (squadron code UN, callsign SPRINGCAP). When the group began receiving P-38s in an unpainted aluminium finish in the spring of 1944, the 71st changed its color to black. Red spinners were also introduced sometime in 1944 to the entire group. During the time of the North Africa invasion, the national insignia was outlined in yellow, replaced by a star-and-bar outlined in red in early 1943. From May 1943 on the standard star-and-bar national insignia was used.
caption: 94th FS Lockheed P-38 Lightning in North Africa.
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