USAAF wings question

[Marv]

Just a quickie regarding the wearing of USAAF wings on either the pinks or greens shirt when not wearing the service dress uniform eg. with say an A2.

1) Was this a requirement or an option to have your wings pinned on to the shirt.

2) If so, where the wings the full size 3" or the 2" miniture version.

3) No wings were worn at all on shirts.

Thanks in advance for your help chaps......

 

[MPicciotto]

I believe the correct would be the 2" "shirt wings" size. But I've heard that the 3" ones were popular on shirts, and they do look nice the bigger wings on the shirt. Sorry that is all I can answer with any authority.

Matt

 

[Story]

Figured this was an appropriate pre-existing thread

CONCORD, N.H. (AP) -- Sixty-five years ago, 1st Lt. Bernerd Harding huddled in a cellar with a few other airmen captured by German farmers and buried his pilot's wings, fearful he'd be beaten or shot as an American bomber pilot.

Now, at age 90, Harding wants his wings back. He's headed to Germany on Sunday and hopes - with the help of a German doctor - to find the farmhouse cellar and dig up the 3-inch-long metal wings that he had proudly pinned to his shirt. The house was in rural Klein Quenstedt (pronounced klyn KWEN'-shted), Germany, southwest of Berlin, he said.

"I know exactly where the wings are. They're not very deep. I won't need a shovel," he said in a firm, clear voice during a telephone interview from his Milford, N.H., home.

A month after the D-Day invasion of Normandy, Harding was a 25-year-old B-24 pilot flying his 14th mission when he was shot down. Harding, a member of the 8th Air Force's 492nd Bomb Group, was leading nine other B-24s in the 859th squadron on a daylight mission to bomb an aircraft manufacturing plant in Bernburgh on July 7, 1944. He was carrying 11 other soldiers on his plane.

http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/U/US_BURIED_WINGS?SITE=FLTAM&SECTION=US

 

[MPicciotto]

I hope he finds his wings!

Matt

 

[Gene]

I hope he does too!

The answer to your question is the AAF boys didn't really like to follow regulations. You'll see 3" wings, 2" wings, bullion wings, felt patched wings, no wings at all, etc. Pretty much any one is correct. BUT you'll see them more often than not because they were very proud of their wings!

Gene