USAAF US Army Air Force Patch United States 6 AAF Caribbean ASW 1942

US Army Air Force Patch United States 6 AAF 1942 Anti Submarine Caribbean Gulf Of Mexico South America Panama Canal Fully Embroidered cut edge 75mm by 63mm two and seven eighth inches by two and seven sixteenth inches.

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6 United States Army Air Force USAAF was activated on 18 September 1942 at Albrook Air Force Station Canal Zone on the renaming of Caribbean Air Force previously Panama Canal Air Force which had been activated on 20 November 1940. 

 6 AAF initially performed antisubmarine operations in the Caribbean and the Gulf of Mexico and to cover Allied shipping convoys in the area following the German Navy U Boat operations in the Caribbean. U Boats sank several tankers in the harbour at Sint Nicholaas Aruba and shelled an oil refinery on the island which possessed oil from wells in Venezuela and counted for one third of the Allies supply of gasoline. The Sixth Army Air Force expanded throughout the Caribbean and Latin America with units stationed from Cuba in the north to British Guiana and Surinam on the northern coast of South America to protect the Venezuelan oilfields. Air bases were also established along the western coast of South America in Peru, Ecuador as well as in the Galapagos Islands Panama Guatemala and Costa Rica. 6 Army Air Force combat units were stationed in Brazil to patrol the South Atlantic air routes to protect the vital Air Transport Command South Atlantic Air Route to Europe and North Africa. 

Following the end of the war most of the wartime Caribbean air bases used for antisubmarine patrols were returned to civil authorities in late 1945 or early 1946. Sixth Air Force was redesignated Caribbean Air Command as part of the 1946 USAAF reorganization.

This patch dates from 1942.