403d Wing - History

History

Activated in 1949 as a C-46 Commando Troop Carrier Wing. Ordered to Active Service on 1 April 1951 for duty during the Korean War. The 403d was one of the six units initially assigned to the Eighteenth Air Force, Tactical Air Command, was eventually sent to the Far East.

The 403d mobilized at Portland Municipal Airport, Oregon. The wing trained at home in its C-46s and participated in Eighteenth Air Force’s routine training exercises for the next eleven months. On 11 February 1952, however, the Eighteenth Air Force directed it to transfer its C-46s and prepare to move overseas by 25 March 1952. By 14 April, it was in place at Ashiya AB, Kyushu, Japan. There it acquired a second group and some independent squadrons.

Upon arrival at Ashiya, the 403d immediataly converted to C-119s. This action finally solved the Far East Air Force’s year-old problem of providing the Army with sufficient lift to handle the 187th Regimental Combat Team intact. The new arrangement was soon put to the test. In May 1952, the 403d airlifted the 187th Regimnental Combat Team to Pusan in an expedited movement incident to the quelling of a communist prisoner-of-war riot at Koje-do Island. The wing’s subsequent operations encompassed airborne assault training, airdrop resupply, air landed resupply, and air movement of complete units in the Far East. It engaged in a number of airborne training missions with the 137th Regimental Combat Team. In October 1952 the wing participated in an airborne feint which was part of a United Nations Command amphibious demonstration off eastern Korea

After it had served the prescribed twenty-one months on active military service, the 403d Troop Carrier Wing was inactivated on 1 January, and returned to reserve status.