The setting is USA, place is Orlando Florida, the units mission is advanced fighter combat using P-40's flown by combat veterans who experienced enemy contact first hand to mimic all known enemy tactics from all theaters. This was the original top gun, and one of it's more famous mounts. The Orlando school was broken off and formed from the air war college which was moved from Washington DC, the academic portion split and sent to Maxwell, were it continues today.
Fighter groups, mainly P-47's, would rotate in to Orlando and undergo operations against these guys as their last step in training before deploying overseas. One of the reasons why you'll read how well prepared the later arriving units were when they arrived as an entire group. Not thrown in together as parts and pieces unprepared like early in the war.
The squadron colors on the group leaders aircraft are not a new thing, or an old, it's a tradition from the earliest days of the air arm, and continues even today.
From the Aircam series on the P-40
