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Help me understand this extra large Japanese made patch Wethersfield England


ocsfollowme
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ocsfollowme

Thanks in advance,

 

The 20th Fighter Bomber Wing was at Wethersfield England. What does POL stand for? What does FW-099 stand for?

 

I found a photo of the actual plane (North American F-100C-25 SUPER SABRE) which was pretty cool. 

 

 

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ocsfollowme

Petroleum, oil and lubricant troops, or POL
 

is this it? Makes sense that they hold up the airplane. 
 

why choose that airplane though?

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Old Crow 1986

Here are some educated guesses that may help solve this puzzle....

 

POL = Petroleum, Oil and Lubricants - 100% correct and POL has been the standard USAF acronym for that function for decades (So, one mystery solved)

 

POL is traditionally a Supply Squadron function as opposed to Logistics Readiness Squadron function (LRS = Deployment functions, vehicle ops/motor pool, PMEL)

So my GUESS is 20th Supply Squadron.  My Google search had them at RAF Upper Heyford in the 70s and 80s so not too far a leap that they were in the UK in the 50s and 60s.

 

Why that particular aircraft?  Two GUESSES:

1) In the USAF, some wings (or groups, or squadrons) follow a tradition of identifying a flagship.  That is a specific aircraft dedicated for the Wing (or Group or Squadron) Commander's flying activities.  Here is a picture of the 56 Operations Group flagship.  Note the 56OG designation on the tail.

 

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That 56OG means that is the 56th Operations Group commander's dedicated aircraft.  

 

Maybe FW-099 was the flagship aircraft for the 20 Fighter Bomber Wing way back when and it was chosen as the representative aircraft for the POL patch.

 

2) Second guess...whoever had the patches made up took a representative picture of an F-100 and told the tailor "Have the letters POL, with muscular arms extending outward from the letters, holding up an airplane...symbolically keeping the aircraft aloft.  And make the airplane look like this....(provides the picture of FW-099 to tailor)" The tailor wanting to keep the customer happy, copied the sample photo down to the greatest possible detail, including the designation alphanumerics.  Could be as simple as that.

 

Just some thoughts, open to critiques and comments.

 

 

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This is the 20 Supply Sq. POL Section. Patch is most likely early 60s. FW-099 is what was called a buzz number, unique to each aircraft and derived from the tail number. If a pilot was doing something he shouldn't, like flying under a bridge, these numbers could be seen easier than the tail number and reported. F was for Fighter, and W denoted the F-100 series. All aircraft of the day had these until the mid 60s. BTW, that is an F-100C number, but the 20 TFW flew F-100D/F models. So, someone didn't do their homework! Not uncommon though. But really, I have to wonder if that exact picture wasn't used to make the design. Looks like a large patch, probably used on the souvenir jackets that were popular at the time.

 

Randy

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