History
- For additional history and lineage, see 43d Airlift Wing
The 43d trained for bombardment operations during most of 1941. From December 1941 – February 1942, it flew antisubmarine patrols along the New England coast.
It then moved to the Southwest Pacific via Cape Town, South Africa, from February–March 1942. It then attacked Japanese shipping in the Netherlands East Indies and the Bismarck Archipelago from bases in Australia, New Guinea, and Owi Island between August 1942 and November 1944. While there it earned a Distinguished Unit Citation (DUC) for missions over Papua, New Guinea from August 1942 – January 1943. The unit used skip bombing to sink Japanese ships during the Battle of the Bismarck Sea, 2–4 March 1943, for which the unit earned a second DUC. It also provided support for ground forces on New Guinea and attacked airfields and other enemy installations in New Guinea, the Bismarck Archipelago, Yap, Palau, and the southern Philippines in 1943 and 1944. The group conducted long-range raids on oil refineries on Ceram and Borneo late in the war. After moving to the Philippines in November 1944, the group attacked shipping along the Asiatic coast and struck factories, airfields, and other installations in China and on Formosa. It also supported ground forces on Luzon. The unit moved to Ie Shima in July 1945, from which it conducted raids against airfields and railways in Japan and against shipping in the Inland Sea and the Sea of Japan. It was moved on paper to the Philippines in December 1945 and inactivated in April 1946.
During the next period of activation, between October 1946 and February 1951, the group trained and conducted long-range test missions, including the first nonstop flight around the world (26 February – 2 March 1949), accomplished by Capt James G. Gallagher and his crew in a B-50 called Lucky Lady II. The group deployed to England for training, August–November 1949. It was not operational after 10 February 1951, and the flying squadrons attached directly to the 43d Wing for operations. Inactivated on 16 June 1952.
Between June 1992 and 1 July 1994, the group flew air refueling missions in training exercises. In 1997, it assumed an airlift mission. It cooperated with U.S. Army airborne organizations at nearby Fort Bragg, taking part with them in joint training exercises. Crews and aircraft deployed to Europe and later to Southwest Asia to support contingency operations such as enforcement of no-fly zones over Iraq and for expeditionary force rotations. After terrorist attacks on the U.S. on 11 September 2001, deployed resources in the Global War on Terror.
Read more about this topic: 43d Operations Group
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“No cause is left but the most ancient of all, the one, in fact, that from the beginning of our history has determined the very existence of politics, the cause of freedom versus tyranny.”
—Hannah Arendt (1906–1975)
“It is my conviction that women are the natural orators of the race.”
—Eliza Archard Connor, U.S. suffragist. As quoted in History of Woman Suffrage, vol. 4, ch. 9, by Susan B. Anthony and Ida Husted Harper (1902)
“We may pretend that we’re basically moral people who make mistakes, but the whole of history proves otherwise.”
—Terry Hands (b. 1941)