VMT-18 Devil Pups

VMT-18 "Devil Pups" — Marine training squadron, NAAS Saufley Field, Pensacola · USMC · 1950s-1960s

Worn by Marines at Naval Auxiliary Air Station Saufley Field outside Pensacola, where fledgling aviators took their first hops in yellow-winged Navy trainers — the SNJ Texan giving way to the T-34B Mentor after 1956 and to Training Squadron ONE's primary syllabus of some 35 hours from basic airwork to spins and aerobatics. Marine students and instructors were grouped in their own section at Saufley, and the squadron's scowling red pup — a devil dog not yet grown, riding a set of gold aviator's wings above a Navy trainer — captures exactly what the job was: making Marine pilots out of students who had not yet earned their own.