Accession No. RARE.2024.0079: Purchased, 2017 September
[identification of item], Photograph Album of Activities and People at the Kelly Field Bivouac Area, Including Members of the 94th Fighter Squadron, SPEC.RARE.MMS.0398, Rare Books and Manuscripts Library, Ohio State University
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Processed by: Casey Blackmore, 2024 November; Finding aid written by: Casey Blackmore, 2024 November.
The 94th Fighter Squadron is a unit of the United States Air Force 1st Operations Group. It is one of the oldest units in the United States Air Force, first organized on August 17, 1917 as the 94th Aero Squadron of the United States Army Air Service at Kelly Field in San Antonio, Texas. The original squadron of men was composed entirely of volunteers recruited from all parts of the United States. The squadron was highly publicized in the American newspapers during World War I. The 94th performed the first patrol flown by an American trained squadron in France during World War I in 1918; they flew the Nieuport 28, a French biplane fighter aircraft, during this patrol.
During World War II, all squadrons were re-designated as "fighter" units. After the bombing of Pearl Harbor in 1941, the squadron was sent to March Field, California with P-38 fighter planes. The squadaron entered combat in November of 1942 in North Africa during Operation Torch.
The Photograph Album of Activities and People at the Kelly Field Bivouac Area, Including Members of the 94th Fighter Squadron contains forty photographs of individuals that trained at Kelly Field in San Antonio, Texas. Photographs in the album contain images of soldiers socializing and cooking food in the mess hall, working on military vehicles and at medical tents, and landscape images of the bivouac area. Material is dated 1944.
This collection of photographs arrived as a combined photograph album. The album caption for each image (when there is one) is on the back of the image above in the archival photo binder.