Fleet Air Reconnaissance Squadron One (VQ-1) carries on a long tradition of electronic warfare squadrons of using a bat in their insignia.

The U.S. Navy first used a bat on its official squadron insignia in the 1920s. The Observation Squadron, VOS-3S, flew the Vought O2U-1 Corsair, which was poorly suited for the mission and caused the crew to complain that they were “blind as bats”.

The bat insignia caught on and was used by the squadron as it changed designation until it was disestablished in 1937.

During World War II, various patrol and reconnaissance squadrons, including the predecessors to VQ-1, used bats on their insignia to symbolize the type of flying they did.

These flights were flown when the moon was not full and often in stormy weather to provide cover. This was back when most countries did not have radar and aircraft intercepts were done visually.

Coincidentally, the navigation equipment then used aural tones to provide direction, similar to the way a bat finds food. As you flew toward a navigation station, the tone would get stronger and as you flew away the tone would get weaker, with a cone of silence directly over the station. This allowed crews to locate foreign stations and it worked as well at night as it did during the day.

All of this added to the use of a bat as official squadron insignia. As the squadron was re-designated and new platforms were introduced, use of the bat was continued. The bat represented the electronic countermeasures origin without depicting what the aircrews did.

VQ-1 adopted the bat as its insignia after being established as Electronic Countermeasures Squadron One in 1955. A stencil of a bat was often taken on deployment and little bats would spring up wherever they landed.

After VQ-1 moved to NAS Agana, Guam in 1971, they kept a live fruit bat in the hangar as a mascot. His name was Barney and he was the responsibility of the squadron duty officer. He was kept in a cage located near the squadron’s snack bar, so everyone passing by kept him well fed. Unfortunately, after he passed away the squadron was unable to replace him, but the legacy of the bat lives on.