Important Note

[Col. Douglas King]

From: Col. Douglas King

Matter: Name change in our own Unit.

Report:

We started as the 475th Fighter Group, "Satan's Angels", organyzed as a real WW2 USAAF Group, with 3 different Squadrons and an HQ Section.
But for what is the HL today, we soon realyzed that this was not a so brilliant idea as it seemed at the first glance. Three different squadrons needs really a lot of people. And for the actual standard of what is online flying, it clearly appears that this was not to happen so easy.

Having this in mind, we reformulated ourselves.

From many historical sources, we have evidences that General George Kenney, the real 5th Air Force CO during WW2 organyzed a little fighter force that was directly taking orders from him and his 5th Fighter Command counterpart, General Wurtsmith. This was the 5th Fighter Command HQ Section.

The most successfull American Ace of the WW2, Major Richard Ira "Dick" Bong, who bagged 40 kills, was part of this little but very special unit. The unit was based close to the 5th Air Force HQ during 1944 and 1945. At first at Dobodura, in the New Guinea, and later at Tacloban, Leyte Island, Philippines. And at last at Clark Field, in the Northern Philippines.

The pilots normally were taken out from the most successfull fighter units of the 5th Fighter Command, like the 475th FG, the 49th FG and the 80th FG.

They were normally providing fighter protection for the 5th Air Force HQ, but they also flew a lot of offensive missions during the reconquest of the South-West Pacific territories in the two last years of the war, and were allowed to fly as "Free Lance" pilots almost all the time. The best example of that was Bong, who had permission to fly on his own (but never alone), at will.

So we reformulated ourselves in a similar way.

Our planes are still carring proudly the colors of the 475th FG Squadrons, to make clear our provenience.
Personal markings are allowed, as Nose Arts.
And our roster is organyzed as for every other standard Squadron.
There is the HQ Section, a Red section, a Yellow Section, a Blue section. The Green Section is reserved for pilots in training.

Aircraft will be marked from number 000 for the CO to 001 for the XO and so on.

In HL our tags will from now on change to:

5thFC_CO_King and so on.