Battle of Yavin (PART V):  Blue and Green Squadrons

[Editor's Note: This article was updated on 10/26/2022 with images of VC204 Antoc Merrick (Blue Leader), VC260 R2-SHW (Antoc Merrick's Droid) and VC Antoc Merrick's X-Wing Fighter Vehicle.]

If you missed any parts of the series, click below...

PART I: Alliance Forces at Yavin 6/18/2018
PART II: Red Squadron Pilots 6/19/2018 (Updated 11/11/2022)
PART III: Figures and Toys of Red Squadron 6/20/2018 (Updated 10/26/2022)
PART IV: Gold Squadron 6/21/2018
PART V: Blue and Green Squadrons 6/27/2018 (Updated 10/26/2022)





As we know, Blue Squadron was nixed from the actual film sequences in A New Hope due to problems with blue screen tech, but the EU kept the squadron in play as having participated in the battle. The pilots listed above were identified in the S-Canon ("Secondary Canon") source, the video game Rebel Assault. In that game, the player, known as "Rookie One", destroys the Death Star. The Story Group allowed some of the names of the pilots to be available for canon use, while the storyline itself was clearly contradictory to the events in A New Hope. Six X-wings made up the squadron, several of whom survived. Blue Leader was actually retconned into Return of the Jedi, although he has no known on-screen live action appearances.





Blue Squadron was given the lead role in the Rebel fleet's impromptu effort to support the unsanctioned Rogue One mission of stealing the plans to the "planet killer" at Scarif. General Merrick led the squadron. It's possible (not confirmed, just my suspicion) that his name was inspired by two separate characters from previous Legends sources. Merrick Simms was Blue Leader for the squadron in Rebel Assault as mentioned above. In the sequel game, cleverly named Rebel Assault II, another veteran pilot was named Ace Merrrick.

Blue Squadron consisted of a larger-than-usual compliment of starfighters, including a mix of X-wings, U-wings, and Y-wings. While 11 of the ships are identified along with their pilots, viewing the battle shows that there were several more members of the beefed-up squadron. Only part of the squadron made it past the shield gate before it closed (which took down two X-wings in the process). The ships that remained above the planet helped defend the Alliance fleet, while General Merrick led the rest of down to the surface in direct support of the Rogue One team. This included the U-Wing piloted by Laren Joma and Taslet Colb, with help from their loony gunner, Bistan. While the mission to steal the plans and beam them to the Alliance fleet was a success, all of the Blue Squadron members that had made it inside the shield gate were killed. It is possible, though not confirmed, that some members of the squadron survived the space battle, and escaped back to Yavin. Whatever the resulting casualties, Blue Squadron was decimated to the point that it was non-operational a few days later when the Battle of Yavin commenced. As such, the new canon officially removes Blue Squadron from the battle.




Green Squadron's role at Yavin in the original timeline (pre-Disney) is even more nebulous than that of Blue Squadron. In the novelization to A New Hope, the starfighters of Green Squadron played the covering force of X-Wings for the main attack group of Blue Squadron. By the time the screenplay was finalized, everything was jumbled around. Blue and Green X-Wings were combined to become Red Squadron, while Gold flew the Y-Wings. Later EU sources fleshed out details that revealed all 4 squadrons flew missions at Yavin, and that Green and Blue's main missions were to destroy surface guns and then attack the laser dish in an attempt to distract from the main assault in the trench. At no point were any pilots identified by name, including anywhere in the EU.





Green Squadron participated at Scarif, and several of the pilots could be seen in Rogue One, and were identified in the Visual Dictionary.

New Canon simplified matters at Yavin. Knowing that 12 X-wings comprised Red Squadron, and 8 Y-wings comprised Gold Squadron, Green was the designation given to the 10 "unaccounted for" X-wings seen in the approach shot in A New Hope. However, those ships were never revisited during the battle, which of course focused only on the actions of Red and Gold Squadrons. Now that Blue Squadron was removed from the Yavin equation in the new canon, it is reasonable to assume that most of the nameless pilots shown preparing their X-wings and jumping into their cockpits at Yavin Base just prior to assaulting the Death Star belong to Green Squadron. It would also be a very safe bet that all of them died during the battle, attempting to buy time for the exhaust port strategy to succeed, as it seems confirmed that the same three Alliance starfighters survived the battle (along with the Millennium Falcon) in both timelines - although, as mentioned, Evaan Verlaine replaced Keyan Farlander in the cockpit of the Y-wing.

One strange bit of backstory on Puck Naeco, who we already covered in previous parts since he flew as Red Twelve at Yavin:

Around the time of the Battle of Scarif, he flew in Green Squadron, under the callsign Green Twelve. However, Naeco vacated the spot after breaking an ankle in a rough landing, and was replaced by lieutenant Wion Dillems.[4] During the assault on the Death Star at Yavin, he flew as Red Twelve, as part of Garven Dreis's Red Squadron.

The Rogue One Ultimate Visual Guide is the source for Puck's injury keeping him sidelined from his normal Green Squadron position at Scarif. However, it seems strange that his ankle injury would heal itself quickly enough in order for him to be loaned out to Red Squadron mere days later in the short story "Duty Roster", which specifically revolves around there being too many pilots and not enough "birds." Not sure how Naeco was able to jump into an X-wing only a couple of days later, unless there was a shortage of starfighters. Of course, that brings up the point from the short story "Grounded", in which there is a shortage of pilots, so it would make sense that they were assigning anyone who could fly (including Luke). When it came to resolving some contradictions, I was leaning towards giving the nod to "Duty Roster" for reasons discussed in previous parts of our Yavin coverage, but here it seems that "Grounded" makes more sense. The only reasonable explanation to me would be that Naeco was not quite 100% at Scarif, and the extra couple of days of rest was enough to make him ready. Maybe Bill Belichick listed him as "questionable" on the injury report, just to keep the Empire on its toes. In any case, Darth Vader killed Puck, bum ankle and all.

So there you have the unheralded stories of Blue and Green Squadrons at Yavin. Blue didn't participate, while all of Green Squadron was killed, with none of the 10 deceased hero pilots being identified.



In PART I, we explained how the old EU had two A-Wing fighters participate at Yavin. These were sourced to the video game Rebel Assault, and later retconned as R22 Spearheads, instead of A-Wings. Jake Farrell was one of those pilots, and apparently survived the battle off screen, later participating at Endor. Along with Lepira and Farlander, Farrell makes 3 pilots that Hasbro released as action figures. While Lepira was killed at Yavin, Farlander and Farrell were both canonized on screen (as live action actors) and present at either the Home One briefing or in the actual battle. Hasbro's figures of both Farlander and Farrell depict them as they appeared in ROTJ. All 3 pilots still have the opportunity to be brought forward into the new canon under these names. We'll see what happens.

Hasbro, if you're reading any of this, please make a Vintage Collection Blue Leader X-Wing (use the same mold as was used for TVC's Red Two) with a super-articulated General Antoc Merrick, a named astromech (that is visually accurate to whatever LFL sources you can find), and thrown in some cool stuff - like ladders, and whatnots...


Yay! Hasbro did it! As of 2022, we now have Antoc Merrick, R2-SHW, and his X-Wing! Seems unlikely we'll get many other members of Blue Squadron, but at least we have the precedent using the new VC158 Luke Skywalker body, as well as existing astromech and X-Wing tooling.







Antoc Merrick: TVC - VC204 Antoc Merrick (Blue Leader) [Target 2021]

V204 Antoc Merrick is the first time Hasbro took the outstanding VC158 Luke Skywalker (X-Wing Pilot) and used it as a base for a repaint and new headsculpt to make another character. It's an outstanding figure, although the helmet wasn't updated from Luke so it doesn't fit Merrick all the well. Nevertheless, we now know it's possible that Hasbro will use VC158 to produce new Rebel Pilots, so there's potential for debut characters from new media down line, and possibly even from the OT. It would seem that hasbro's recent "expression" of troop builder multi-packs could be used to this end as well, without taking up slots in the main line.





R2-SHW: TVC - VC260 R2-SHW (Antoc Merrick's Droid) [2022]

It seems LFL never gave a canon name - or appearance, for that matter - of Merrick's astromech droid. Hasbro must have worked directly with LFL to create R2-SHW's name and color pattern from scratch, so that we now have a droid to complete this mini-crew. It's too bad that the figure is an inferior sculpt when there were better ones available in 2022, but I'm at least glad we have this guy.





Blue Leader: TVC - Antoc Merrick's X-Wing Fighter Vehicle [Target 2021]

Antoc Merrick's X-Wing was released as a somewhat hard to find Target exclusive. In keeping with recent precedent, Hasbro gave us the box-in-a-box format, and included Antoc Merrick himself as a carded figure inside the package. The vehicle itself is a repaint of the most recent X-Wing vehicle iteration, which is pretty outstanding, even if it has a legacy that goes back many years. It's certainly possible Hasbro could continue repainting this vehicle for years to come, to provide new releases for the newest media sources, like more Blue Squadron from Rogue One, or perhaps Trapper Wolf and Carson Teva from The Mandalorian. Who knows.

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