Official Website of the

389th Bombardment Group (H)

389TH BOMBARDMENT GROUP (H) UNIT INSIGNIA AND NICKNAME

WHAT IS THE NICKNAME OF THE 389TH BOMB GROUP?

IS IT “THE SKY SCORPIONS” OR “THE GREEN DRAGONS”?

IF THE NICKNAME IS “THE SKY SCORPIONS” WHY IS THE UNIT INSIGNIA A DRAGON?

IF THE UNIT INSIGNIA IS “THE GREEN DRAGON” then WHY IS THE DRAGON BLUE?

By: Kelsey McMillan, 389th Bomb Group Official Historian

     The simple answer to all but the last of these questions is the 389th Bombardment Group had no official unit insignia and no official nickname. The amplified answers to these questions are complex and somewhat speculative.
     With the deeply rooted legacy of heraldry in the military, a distinctive coat of arms and/or unit nickname seem as fundamental to a military unit as its weapons. It’s difficult to understand, then, why the 389th Bomb Group had no official unit emblem or nickname, while so many of its peers in the Eighth Air Force did. There are no explanations in the official history, and no surviving commanders who can address the question. Even if they were all here to give their opinions, it is doubtful there would be a consensus.
     So it seems the 389th Bomb Group trained in the states, and embarked for, and arrived in the ETO without a unifying emblem or nickname around which to rally and to show the world who they were. An unofficial insignia did eventually emerge, but it was long after the war had ended - the “Green Dragon”. And a nickname was in limited use for a brief period of time in the summer of 1943 - "The Sky Scorpions". Chances are, if you are not a 389th veteran who attended reunions in the 1980s and 1990s, you are confused by these two incongruous images and want to know the meaning of it all. Just like everything else in military history, there are no simple answers, and no answers upon which 100% would agree. So here is the full poop to the best of our knowledge today.

THE SKY SCORPIONS
     Shortly after the 389th Air Echelon arrived at its new station in England in June 1943, it received orders to pack up and go to Bengasi, Libya, to lend a hand to Ninth Bomber Command in supporting the Sicily Invasion. (They would also fly into Air Force history with their participation in the historic mission to bomb oil refineries in the Ploesti, Rumania, area. But that’s another story.) The 389th found itself snatched from the comparative lap of luxury in England and cruelly dumped in the North African desert to live in tents, sandstorms, and a state of privation, dubious sanitary conditions, and dysentery. Their inevitable bunkmates and mess-tent mates were locusts, scorpions, and a variety of insects the likes of which the Americans had never seen. Their privies were boxes with holes cut in the top, sitting out in the open, allowing them to tip their caps to passing caravans of nomads on camel back. Never mind “not being in Kansas anymore,” they may as well have been on a different planet.

Desert living conditions in North Africa inspired nose art ideas while the group was on detached service near Bengasi, Libya, summer 1943. LEFT PHOTO: The Ben Walsh crew's THE LITTLE GRAMPER (photo by Levon West aka Ivan Dmitri, published in Flight to Everywhere, McGraw Hill Book Company, 1944); CENTER PHOTO: The John Blackis crew's SCHEHERAZADE; RIGHT PHOTO: and possibly THE GOLDEN SANDSTORM with a double meaning for the James Tolleson crew.

     The alien desert living conditions obviously inspired the men to express themselves in heraldic fashion. It’s not known for certain, but believed that most of the 389th’s Liberators departed the United States without nose art. We do know that some of these bombers returned to England with nose art that was applied in Libya. One example was “THE LITTLE GRAMPER,” the B-24 assigned to the Ben Walsh crew. The crew’s navigator, Thomas Colin Campbell, observed that a desert insect resembled the walking stick so familiar to boy scouts back home. Its spindly limbs and slow and careful steps reminded him of an elderly man tottering along, and he dubbed the bug “gramps.” This evolved into “grampers” then “little gramper,” and then the name was given to the Walsh crew’s Liberator. Walsh’s radio operator painted THE LITTLE GRAMPER on the bomber in Bengasi, and even signed his work. Look closely beneath the “E” in GRAMPER and you’ll see “S/Sgt A.I. Marsh”.
     Then there was SCHEHERAZADE named by 564th pilot John T. Blackis, for the legendary Persian queen, Scheherazade, the storyteller of The Book of One Thousand and One Nights. The desert theme was obviously inspired by the environment, but it was also the desire to emulate her skill at surviving a deadly situation and evil tyrant through her superior wit and morality.
     THE GOLDEN SANDSTORM was the bomber named by 564th pilot, James Tolleson from Amarillo, Texas. Amarillo High School’s mascot was the Amarillo Sandies (formally named "The Golden Sandstorm"). Did Tolleson name his ship THE GOLDEN SANDSTORM before the 389th’s stint in the desert? Or did the inspiration come after his residency in real sandstorms? We don’t know.
     The desert bivouac inspiration of them all was THE SCORPION, the name of 564th pilot Capt Kenneth Caldwell’s ship. The only thing more abundant than the scorpions was the sand, and the scorpion packs a painful wallop to its enemies. It is believed that the name of this aircraft, which led the 389th on the Tidal Wave mission, may have inspired some officers to nickname the 389th “The Sky Scorpions”.
     Personal papers belonging to Lt Alvin Sheard, the Group Navigator during the Bengasi detachment, are the only known wartime reference to the “The Sky Scorpions” as the group’s nickname. He wrote in his diary on August 15, 1943: “Daily sands come up each day about noon; makes life more dismal. Have very little chance to get in missions once taking over as Group Navigator. The Group is named ‘The Sky Scorpions’ and the Group plane Y named ’BACKSHEESH BENNY RIDES AGAIN’. ‘Bak’ is ‘free’ in Arabic.”

LEFT PHOTO: 564th Flight Leader Capt Kenneth Caldwell named his B-24 THE SCORPION. It's unknown which came first - the unofficial and temporary nicknaming of the 389th as "The Sky Scorpions" or Caldwell's nose art. Both were inspired by the proliferation of real scorpions the men had to live with in the Libyan desert, summer 1943. Jack Benny takes a photo op with THE SCORPION during his USO visit to entertain the troops in N. Africa. RIGHT PHOTO: Benny christening with a canteen water the nose art BUCKSHEESH BENNY RIDES AGAIN, a tribute to his 1940 Western film spoof, Buck Benny Rides Again. It is believed that this is the opposite side of the same ship bearing THE SCORPION nose art.

     Sheard’s nephew Robert Sheard also shared a copy of a V-Mail that Al wrote to his younger brother Bob (Robert Sheard’s dad) on August 20, 1943. Al stated, “The group has been named The Sky Scorpions and has done very good in its operations.”
     The entry in Sheard’s diary on August 14, 1943, reports that the group was entertained by a USO show featuring famous radio and film comedian Jack Benny. There are some photos of Benny’s visit that suggest a possible explanation about the nose art and the group’s unofficial nickname. Photos of the left side of a B-24 show Benny christening with canteen water the nose art BUCKSHEESH BENNY RIDES AGAIN, a tribute to his 1940 Western film spoof, Buck Benny Rides Again. “Bucksheese” was substituted for “Buck” in the nose art because, reportedly, bucksheesh or backsheesh was a common native expression that was a request for a gift, gratuity, or handout, commonly used by beggars. Al Sheard’s combat diary states that it was an Arabic/Middle Eastern term meaning "free." In a photo of what is believed to be the right side of the same B-24 is the nose art THE SKY SCORPIONS. Interestingly, these photos were taken the day before Al Sheard wrote in his diary that the group had been named “The Sky Scorpions.” Perhaps the nose art then inspired the nickname.
     Interviews with original cadre veterans many decades after the war indicate that the nickname was not official and not even widely known among the desert band during its time in North Africa, or even through to end of their service with the 389th Bomb Group.
     Major Paul T. Burton, original 565th Squadron Commander, wrote in his book Escape From Terror, “About the only wildlife on our base was scorpions. They could be found hiding under rocks or any other shelter they could find. All of us slept on army cots in army pyramidal tents. The first thing we did every morning was religiously invert and shake our shoes, because scorpions were often to be found inside them. Our cots had mosquito netting suspended on all four sides and over the top, and the bottom was tucked under our mattresses so that nothing could surprise us while we slept. Nevertheless, one morning Hank Yeager awakened to find a scorpion halfway up the inside of his netting. Our group's nickname then became ‘Sky Scorpions.’”
     Said original cadre member, M/Sgt Earl Zimmerman, radio operator for the Harold James crew: “I would like to know when the 389th was first called "The Sky Scorpions." I never heard that term used in my two years at Hethel, and not until I read Dugan and Stewart’s book Ploesti, The Great Ground-Air Battle of 1 August 1943 did I know we even had a nickname. That’s the earliest reference to the group as ‘Sky Scorpions’ and it was published in 1962. The Pictorial History of the 389th Bombardment Group (better known as the Blue Book to most) that was published in 1947 says nothing about a nickname. You’d think it would be in there if it was in fact our nickname.”
     Zimmerman added, “We had a newspaper at the Hethel base called ‘Lib Digest’. I pulled out an issue I had looking for references to ‘The Sky Scorpions’ It included articles on matches between our baseball team, chess team, wrestling team, etc. with other stations, and our debating team that went to Oxford University, etc. There wasn’t a ‘Sky Scorpion’ mentioned in the lot. I also noted the program for the celebration of our 300th mission was titled ‘389th Bomb Group Hits 300.’ No mention of ‘Sky Scorpions’ there either.”
     Said Philip Wright, son of original cadre member and later the 565th Commanding Officer Col Robert Lee Wright: “My father flew from the first with the 389th BG and was into his second tour when the war ended. I used to ask him as a kid if he had a name on his aircraft and about the name, Sky Scorpions. My father said he didn't use nose art; he didn't want to attract any extra attention to his crew and himself. As for the nickname, he said they weren't called the Sky Scorpions. He didn't know where the name came from and from what I gathered, he didn't much care for someone trying to put a name on the 389th. Needless to say I was a bit disappointed as a kid, since I didn't have any nose art to paint on my Airfix B-24 kit!”
     From Fred Lipper: “My father-in-law, Don Pierce was waist gunner in OLE IRISH from the beginning of the 389th at Hethel, and he doesn't recall any Sky Scorpion nickname for the group. Apparently it wasn't in wide use.”
     Many wartime documents and official publications, as well as magazines and the Stars and Stripes newspapers, refer to the 389th’s peers by their nicknames: the 44th Bomb Group was “The Flying Eightballs” and 93rd Bomb Group was “Ted’s Travelling Circus”; but nowhere do we ever see the 389th referred to as “The Sky Scorpions” in print during the war. It never once appears in the early official history of the 389th that was written in early 1944 by Group Historian Capt George Cermak at the request of Commanding Officer Col Jack W. Wood.
     Once the group had returned to its station in England, that nickname seemed to have been all but forgotten, if in fact more than a handful of men ever embraced. For those who did know it and use it, perhaps it no longer seemed to fit the 389th in the middle of the lush, green farmlands of East Anglia. Perhaps the name also no longer fit because the complexion of the group had changed so significantly – a lot of new faces replacing men left behind in the North Africa detached service - killed in action, held as prisoners of war, or recovering in hospitals.
     The mystery then is how did such an obscure reference that should have been completely forgotten be reborn into such modern-day prominence that “The Sky Scorpions” is considered the official nickname of the 389th Bomb Group in practically every book and website related to the 8th Air Force? It seems to have begun with Cal Stewart’s seminal book about the Tidal Wave mission, but where he got it, we don’t know. We know the authors interviewed and/or corresponded with Jack Wood, Paul Burton, John Brooks, and Philip Ardery, but neither Brooks nor Ardery could recall anything about a nickname when asked about it by Earl Zimmerman. Cal Stewart did not interview Yeager for the book and he never joined the veterans associations or attended any reunions.
     I would imagine Stewart asked these high-ranking officers whether the group had a nickname when he was researching this book. Since all four of the other bomb groups in Tidal Wave had nicknames, it would certainly give Stewart more creative options instead of constantly referring to the group as “the 389th”. And how would it look for the poor 389th to be the only group in the book without a cool nickname? My sense is that one or more of the high-ranking 389th officers Stewart interviewed provided him with “The Sky Scorpions”, and he used it more than 20 times in the book. And every author that followed, using the Cal Stewart book as a reference, took it for granted the nickname was fact. Although this is an authoritative book about TW written by veterans of the mission, the authors’ repeated reference to the 389th Bomb Group as “The Sky Scorpions” is nothing more than creative license.
     Despite the brief and isolated reference to the nickname “The Sky Scorpions” while in the North African desert, the 389th never adopted it as an official (U.S. Army approved) nickname or unit insignia. It has been made clear by many of the original cadre veterans that this nickname was unknown to them during the war, and that it evoked no sense of unit pride or identity after it somehow became mainstream, or as we say in cyberspace “went viral”. For some other 389th veterans, the nickname came to have meaning and evoked pride. For the majority of 389th veterans who belonged to the 389th BG Association in the 1980s, 1990s and beyond, (including many veterans who served on that detached service in Bengasi) it is apparent from their stories and letters published in the newsletter that the name “Sky Scorpions” held little or no meaning for them. It was not a nickname with which most identified. For them there was enough pride in just saying “I was in the 389th.”

The Green Dragon Inn at Wymondham in England, the war-time inspiration for the 389th's unofficial unit insignia. In WWII many a serviceman stationed at the Hethel Airfield spent their free time at this cozy pub, just two miles from the station. The Green Dragon in still in business today and they enjoyed welcoming back quite a few Yanks and their offspring as they made sentimental journeys to East Anglia in the decades after the war.

     It is believed the beginning of the 389th’s identification with the Green Dragon as a unit symbol began with the christening of the group’s formation ship as "The Green Dragon". The Eighth Air Force assembly ship (also called a formation ship or Judas Goat) was used to rally the bombers of its group into combat formation. The assembly ship was usually a war-weary bomber, stripped of armaments, outfitted with flashing lights on the fuselage, and painted in distinctive and garish color schemes. The 389th’s “Green Dragon” assembly ship was painted up in green and yellow angled stripes. At one point, assembly ships were equipped with colored lights on the sides that flashed the group’s code letter. The 389th’s code letter was “C”. All these tactics were used to enable the aircraft flying the mission to identify and fall in behind the correct assembly ship. Visibility was often poor due to the prevailing fog and inclement weather over England; added to which, air bases in East Anglia were often only a few miles apart, mission takeoff was sometimes before sunrise. Without the assembly ships, it was quite easy for a bomber pilot to fall in with the wrong group! Once the formation process was complete, the bombers headed for the target, and the assembly ship returned to base.

The 389th's Formation Ship, THE GREEN DRAGON. The Formation Ship (also called the Assembly Ship or the Judas Goat) took off first before all other aircraft for a mission. It climbed to a predetermined altitude and airspace and flew circuits over a radio beacon while the bombers, taking off behind it in 30 second intervals, followed and took their positions in a planned formation behind the Formation Ship. The Assembly Ship also fired color-coded flares from the waist window and/or used an Aldis lamp to flash Morse code from the tail turret. To aid in recognition during dark or foggy conditions, the ships were outfitted on each side of its fuselage with flashing lights arranged in the shape of the bomb group’s call letter. All these tactics were used to enable the aircraft flying the mission to identify, and to form up behind the correct Assembly Ship. Visibility was often poor due to fog and inclement weather over England. Add to which, mission take-offs were sometimes before sunrise, and airfields in East Anglia were so close together, it was easy to fall in behind the wrong Assembly Ship as more than a dozen B-24 groups were usually trying to get into formation at the same time. Once the formation process was complete the Assembly Ship returned to base and the bombers headed for their targets.

     With no official 389th insignia in place, the Green Dragon design (image at top of page, right side) began to catch on. Some combat fliers had it painted on their leather A-2 jackets. Some veterans say this was the practice of primarily just the lead crews, but this is not known for certain. Some Pathfinder crewmen apparently did adopt Quackenbush’s Green Dragon as the emblem of their elite lead crew status, judging by the photos of lead crews in which all or most of the men sport the design on their A-2 jackets.
     Many other veterans say they have no recollection of the Green Dragon being used as insignia during the war, but it depends on who you ask. Unlike an official insignia, the use of the Green Dragon was popularized by a handful of officers at a particular time in the war. Ask any officer who served in the 389th before that time and he will tell you he never saw it used during the war and did not remember it being in the Officers’ Club. No point in asking the ground enlisted men who lived on the base for two years if they remembered the painting in the Officers’ Club because they were not allowed in there.
     During the 26th annual reunion of the 2nd Air Division Association in Colorado Springs, July 1973, Quackenbush donated a painting of his original Green Dragon design to the 389th veterans. This painting is now in the 2nd Air Division Archives of the Memorial Library in Norwich, England. The design was reproduced as an embroidered patch that has been very popular with 389th veterans, their families, and collectors ever since.
     Quackenbush also presented color drawings of his insignia designs for each of the four squadrons. Although these designs have made it into books and been recreated as patches you can buy on the Internet, they are post-war creations, unofficial, and unlike the Green Dragon, they were never embraced by the 389th veterans. In other words, the veterans that saw them were not interested in buying and displaying the squadron patches because they did not identify with them. When compared to all the other bomb group and squadron emblems out there, these designs are not particularly attractive, imaginative, or inspiring in my opinion. I’ve never embraced them either, and that’s why you won’t see them used anywhere else on this website.

These squadron insignia designs were not used during the war, and the great majority of 389th veterans probably never saw them. Even though they can be found in books and on websites about the Eighth Air Force, they are unofficial and had little or no meaning to the 389th veterans

     The real mystery of the unofficial 389th Green Dragon insignia is the color of the dragon. The dragon on the sign at the Green Dragon Inn (which is still in operation today) is as advertised – green. The dragon in all of Quackenbush’s renderings - the mural, the A-2 jackets, and his modern day drawing – are blue! Why? We have no answer for that one. As an artist I was curious to see how this design would look if the dragon were green instead of blue. Against that goldenrod yellow background, and with the red bomb, a green dragon looked awful.

FIGHTIN’ SAM
     To throw more confusion into the mix, let me tell you about another emblem in the 389th whose use was exclusive to certain personnel in a limited time span. The “Fightin’ Sam” image became the de facto insignia of the 566th Squadron after Capt Thomas C. Conroy had it painted on his B-24D. The symbolic image is a determined-looking Uncle Sam rolling up his sleeves in preparation for a fight. He has a black eye, representing the blow America suffered on December 7, 1941, when Japan attack Pearl Harbor. Reportedly, when Conroy saw this political cartoon in some newspaper, he wrote to the publisher and received permission to emblazon the inspiring image on his heavy bomber. This bomber, serial number 42- 40506, was an original 389th ship assigned to the group before it deployed overseas. No one knows for certain where or when the nose art was added, but the crew chief of FIGHTIN’ SAM, M/Sgt John G. Petrocelli, felt certain that it was not painted in the U.S. Those 389th veterans that were on detached service in Bengasi in the summer of 1943 agree that the nose art was also not added while they were in the desert. (And by the way, despite anything you may have read elsewhere, this B-24 was not flown on Operation Tidal Wave.) So it would seem the artist’s brush was applied sometime after the group returned to England in late August 1943.
     The FIGHTIN’ SAM nose art was a source of pride among the 566th Squadron personnel who began drawing/painting it on walls, signs, leather jackets, and even metal plaques wired to their bicycle crossbars. It became so popular on the base that many combat crews who never flew this bomber, and didn’t even belong to the 566th Squadron, had their crew photos taken in front of this B-24’s nose. Although FIGHTIN’ SAM was transferred on May 23, 1944, to the 492nd BG “Carpetbaggers,” the popularity of the artwork lived on at Hethel.

LEFT PHOTO: 566th pilot Tom Conroy had this inspiring nose art painted on his B-24. The symbolic image is a determined-looking Uncle Sam rolling up his sleeves in preparation for a fight. The black eye he has represents the attack on Pearl Harbor, December 7, 1941. CENTER PHOTO: It inspired the men of the 566th to adopt it as an unofficial emblem of their squadron, and they painted it on jackets, walls, and even metal signs wired to the frames of their bicycles, like 566th Operations Clerk Sgt John Rhoads here. RIGHT PHOTO: A color rendering by the author.

CONCLUSION
     Unlike many of its peer bomb groups in the 2nd Air Division (formerly the 2nd Bomb Division), the 389th has no officially adopted insignia or nickname, and various groups of veterans within the group feel represented by different unofficial motifs. But the pride, esprit des corps, and outstanding accomplishments of this exceptional unit transcended the need to brandish Army-approved heraldry. They marched into battle under one banner and it read “DUTY”.

SIDEBAR: GETTING APPROVAL FOR UNIT EMBLEMS
     At the time the 389th Bomb Group was constituted, the Adjutant General had ultimate responsibility for approving and disapproving unit insignia, with the advice and support of the Quartermaster General. The AG issued the following orders to the QM on December 18, 1924: The Quartermaster General of the Army is charged with supervision over the design of individual regimental coats of arms, regimental insignia, and trimmings and shoulder sleeve insignia and will make suitable recommendation to The Adjutant General in each case, including a statement as to whether or not, in his opinion, the design submitted meets the requirements of regulations and the established policies of the War Department. The Adjutant General is authorized to approve or disapprove the design of and to take appropriate action upon correspondence relating to individual regimental coat of arms, regimental insignia, and trimmings and shoulder sleeve insignia, in accordance with the regulations and the established policies of the War Department.”
     What were the regulations and policies? According to Distinctive Insignia of The U.S. Army Air Forces by Joseph M. Massaro (International Publishing Co. Austin, Texas, 1987):
“The general rules stipulated first that the emblems should be of ‘real value’ to the service. They must be ‘simple, and possess some historical significance.’ The second rule directed that they be dignified and in good taste. “Fantastic designs” were prohibited since ‘they may be characteristic and funny but they have no permanent value.’ Thirdly, the designs should tell a picture story relevant to the organization and should be ‘distinguishable in the air’.”

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