323rd F.I.S.

323rd Fighter-Interceptor Squadron · USAF · 1952-1960

A 1950s fully embroidered jacket patch of the 323rd Fighter-Interceptor Squadron, reactivated under Air Defense Command at Larson Air Force Base, Washington in November 1952 to guard the skies over the Pacific Northwest. The squadron traded war-weary F-51 Mustangs for rocket-armed F-86D Sabres in 1953, then for supersonic F-102 Delta Daggers carrying the AIM-4 Falcon missile — the stooping falcon clutching a red-and-white rocket on this patch is no accident. In October 1957 the unit deployed to Ernest Harmon Air Force Base, Newfoundland, standing alert against Soviet bombers on the polar routes until it was inactivated on 1 July 1960. Its lineage reaches back to August 1942 at Mitchel Field, New York, where the 323rd first flew P-40s and P-47s as a training squadron of the 327th Fighter Group.