404th Patch Scan: Courtesy of
Jeff Marksbury
From
the Official History of the 11th Air Force...
On July 8th
(1942) the 404th Bombardment Squadron arrived in the Alaskan theater with
B-24 aircraft originally destined for the North African theater.
The Liberators, brand new, were painted with a brilliant pink camouflage,
satisfactory for desert warfare and admirably unsuited for Alaska use.
The squadron appropriately was nick-named "The Pink
Elephants" and the unit insignia, a flying pink elephant with
fifty-caliber machine guns for tusks and carrying in his raised trunk a
bomb, rampant upon a blue background, became one of the most familiar in
the Alaskan Theater.
Sgt J. B.
Nunn, one of the outstanding cartoonists was responsible for this nightmare
which was approved as the squadron's official insignia.
Over and through a light green disc, bordure black, piped white, a caricatured white elephant running, wearing aviators goggles with gold rim trimmed black, black belt about the the waist, holding two machine guns pointing to rear, grasping a large yellow aerial bomb upraised in trunk, having two black machine guns for tusks and ears in shape of wings, soles of hind feet brown. (Approved 21 Nov 1942)
Note:
The comments in the official history report the elephant to be Pink,
while the approved patch has a White
elephant and the official history report says the background of the patch
is Blue
while the approved patch has a Green
background.
Photographs
of the 404th Bomb Squadron
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Always looking for Material
and Scans of the 11th Air Force and Associated Units to add to this site.
