Generally, unless one was the CAG, or other exalted personage, one took what was spotted on the deck where one's position was in the launch program. Some squadrons assigned particular aircraft to particular pilots, others did not, but the reality was that a given pilot was not likely to always fly the same aircraft over and over. This trips up a lot of researchers as they tend to look at things from the eyes of land based units with their more permanent attachments between a pilot and "his" plane. Most of the USN photo moments of pilots in their planes were after the fact; so and so might have eight flags down the side of "his" plane today, but tomorrow he and his mates get relieved by another air group, which takes over the aircraft, and fresh paint covers those flags.
VF-88's first CO was Dick Crommelin. Dick flew in VF-42 at Coral Sea and VF-3 at Midway off the old Yorktown (CV-5). He and my father were USNA classmates, squadron-mates, and shared a cabin aboard Yorktown through the battle of Midway.
Dick was the in the driver's seat of the well known Aleutian Zero in February 1945 when, while waiting for permission to take off from NAS North Island, it got chopped to pieces by an SB2C which came up behind it; stopping just short of the cockpit when the Beast driver saw metal flying in every direction. Dick got his shot at flying the A6M2 because his older brother John (whom we always called "Uncle John"), who was Director of Training for ComFAirWest and grand high keeper of the Zero, decided his little brother, as a squadron commander, needed to know how a Zero handled before going west.
Dick was killed in an fog-bound mid-air collision while on a strike near Hokkaido on 15 July 1945. The XO, Malcolm "Chris" Cagle, took over command of the squadron for the rest of the war. Moving up to XO was Johnny Adams who as an Ensign had also flown in VF-42 and VF-3 at the same time as Dick and my father. Below is are messages regarding Dick Crommelin' loss.
VF-88, nor did any other squadron, adopt the letter identifiers until after 28 July 1945 when the order to switch to letters went into effect (apropos of nothing else, the guy who assigned which letters to what carrier was my father, then the AsstOpnsOff for TF-38). VF-88 did, indeed, sport the double RR, as did all the Yorktown (CV-10) aircraft. Letters were assigned to carriers, not to air groups. Before the 28th, VF-88 would have the standard Yorktown geometric markings: the rear third, diagonally painted white on the horizontal stablilizer, and a white right angle triangle with the hypotenuse side towards the fuselage on the upper right and lower left wing.
The standard color for a nice new F6F-5 was gloss dark sea blue. As the navy camouflage regulations as the -5s entered production in April 1944, it is safe to presume that almost all, if not all, -5s were painted in the overall gloss sea blue at the factory. Carrier based fighters were ordered to be this gloss sea blue color starting on 13 March 1944; all carrier aircraft were ordered to take on this scheme on 25 June 1944. The exceptions to these edicts were carrier aircraft dedicated to ASW work (read, 'in the Atlantic'). Some often mistake this gloss sea blue color for black, especially in B&W photos and then presume that USN carrier based night fighters were painted black. Not so, they were blue.
By the time VF-88 reached combat, the standard air group on a fleet carrier consisted of a VF, a VBF, a VB, and a VT squadron. Some would tell you that VF squadrons were F6Fs and VBF squadrons were F4Us, but that was not always true. At any rate, in the standard CV type VF squadron there was one four-plane division of dedicated night fighters. These were usually F6F-5Ns, even when the VF squadron was F4U (VF-85 comes to mind, there's a photo one can find without much difficulty just waiting to trip up the unwary that has two F6F-5Ns sporting Shangri-La's end of war Z code - both VF-85 and VBF-85 were Corsair squadrons). Point being, a VF-88, or any other VF or VF(N), for that matter, F6F produced after March 1944, would be gloss sea blue, not black. For that matter, there has been posted here before in another thread a nice picture of an F6F-3N in the pre-March 1944 sea blue/non spec blue grey/light grey tricolor scheme as well. What folks don't seem to get is that carrier night fighters operated just as much in the day as night, in fact, there were at least as many daylight credits to Navy nightfighter pilots as nighttime.
Yorktown Geometric marking (pre 28 July 45) profile can be found here
http://www.markstyling.com/F6F_JPEGs/F6F.41.jpg
Yorktown Geometric markings photos (official USN)
Yorktown Letter Markings (VF-88)
Dick Crommelin
Johnny Adams
VF-88 Gamecocks
Message received in TF38 flag message center re Dick Crommelin missing
Message received in TF38 flag message center re Dick Crommelin negative search
Regards
Rich