VBF-93 Bombing Fighting Squadron Patch

The letters VBF meant Bombing Fighting Squadron, a Navy carrier squadron type whose fighters were expected to carry bombs as readily as they fought. VBF-93 was one of those squadrons, Bombing Fighting Squadron Ninety-Three. The type belongs to the last stretch of World War II, when carrier fighters were being sent out on strike missions as often as on patrol. It was a short-lived designation, and few squadrons wore it for long. That makes a VBF patch a piece of carrier aviation history that a lot of people have never seen.

A VBF squadron was a different outfit from a VB bombing squadron, whose crews flew dedicated dive bombers. By 1945, Navy fighters such as the Grumman F6F Hellcat and the Vought F4U Corsair were regularly hauling bombs and rockets against targets ashore, and the bombing fighting squadrons were built around that work. Most of them carried the VBF letters only from 1945 into 1946. The U.S. Naval Academy's Virtual Memorial Hall lists Commander George Nicol, USNA Class of 1934, of Lima, Ohio, with VBF-93. He was lost on 7 June 1945, recorded as an operational loss, at 32 years old.

The patch is a 4.5 inch circle with a wide light blue merrowed border around a white field. A cartoon fighter fills the center, bright blue with a gridded canopy riding on top like a brow, angry eyes, a red cone nose and wings bent in a deep gull shape picked out in yellow. Two brown boxing gloves throw a punch through a spray of blue speed lines. A small aircraft carrier sits at the lower left, smoke trailing from her stack, and VBF-93 is stitched in white across a light blue band along the bottom. The gloves carry the fighting half of the squadron's name, and the airplane does the rest.

Flying from a carrier in 1945 meant long overwater flights, deck landings in every kind of weather and a war that was being fought closer and closer to Japan. Operational losses were part of that life, and the names of men like Commander Nicol are kept so they are not forgotten. The bombing fighting squadrons did a job that the air groups needed done in the final months of the war. A squadron patch from that period is how the men who flew and maintained those airplanes marked who they were. This one keeps the number and the spirit of VBF-93 together.

It fits a shadow box next to a father's or grandfather's wings and logbook, or a display of Pacific War carrier squadron patches. It is also a good gift for the family of a VBF-93 aviator or anyone who collects World War II naval aviation. The iron-on backing presses onto a jacket or canvas, and stitching it down adds staying power. A boxing-glove fighter and a carrier, VBF-93 in white.