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In August, U.S. Air Forces in Europe’s newest fighter squadron, the 52nd Fighter Wing’s 480th Fighter Squadron, embraced the spirit of the oldest American fighter squadron in Europe — the famous Lafayette Escadrille.
Though there is no direct link from the Lafayette Escadrille to the 480th FS, “like America’s early expeditionary Airmen who came to Europe and voluntarily served with the Lafayette Escadrille during World War I, today’s Airmen of the 480th FS and 52nd FW proudly fly the same skies defending freedom in Europe,” said Col. Christopher Weggeman, commander of the 52nd FW.
The 480th FS was reactivated this year as part of the CAF restructure, when the 52nd FW’s two F-16 squadrons — the 22nd and 23rd fighter squadrons — became a single squadron and took the name of the most historic of the 52nd FW’s former squadrons — the 480 “Warhawks.” The Lafayette Escadrille also had to be dissolved when America entered World War I, and its pilots and commanders moved to units of the American Expeditionary Air Service.
The primary mission of the F-16CJs of the 480th FS is suppression of enemy air defenses, called SEAD.
“Like the pilots of Lafayette Escadrille, we are the ‘First in … Last Out,’ and we have about the same number of pilots as the Lafayette — 38,” said Lt. Col. Andrew Wolcott, the 480th FS commander. “While we do not have a direct organizational lineage to the Lafayette Escadrille, we believe that we are part of a direct spiritual line of American fighter pilots in Europe, and USAFE has encouraged that thinking. We had to design a new patch for the 480th FS and, after consulting with USAFE and the Air Force History Office, we produced a patch with the motto ‘From Escadrille to Warhawks.’”
The pilots of the Lafayette Escadrille, known as the “Valiant 38,” were Americans who joined the French Air Service at the beginning of World War I before America entered the conflict and formed an American squadron, though commanded by French officers. The squadron was named after Marie-Joseph Paul Yves Roch Gilbert du Motier, the Marquis de Lafayette, a French aristocrat and military officer who volunteered to serve in the American Continental Army under Gen. George Washington.
Though the pilots of the squadron had a reputation for being somewhat wild (they had two lion cubs as mascots, Whiskey and Soda) Colonel Wolcott noted that, like the pilots of the 480th FS, “on a professional level, the pilots were completely committed to mission accomplishment, the same as the members of the 480, and its maintenance support are committed to their mission today.”
And the mission has not changed. Like the members of the Lafayette Escadrille, the 480th FS and the other parts of the 52nd FW live up the wing’s motto: “Europes Sentry and Avenger.”
