5th Bomb Wing

5th Bomb Wing

The 5th Bomb Wing (5 BW) is a United States Air Force unit assigned to Air Force Global Strike Command's Eighth Air Force. It is stationed at Minot Air Force Base, North Dakota. The wing is also the host unit at Minot. The 5 BW is one of only two B-52H Stratofortress wings in the United States Air Force, the other being the 2d Bomb Wing at Barksdale Air Force Base, Louisiana.

Its 5th Operations Group is a successor organization of the 5th Group (Composite), one of the 15 original combat air groups formed by the Army before World War II.

On 7 December 1941, the 5th Bombardment Group suffered the loss of B-17 Flying Fortress and B-18 Bolo bombers when the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor, but it sent two B-17s to search vainly for the Japanese task force. After the attack, the group patrolled the waters off the Hawaiian Islands until November 1942, taking part in the Battle of Midway (3–6 June 1942). Active for over 60 years, the 5 BW was a component wing of Strategic Air Command's heavy bomber deterrent force throughout the Cold War.

Read more about 5th Bomb Wing:  Components

Famous quotes containing the words bomb and/or wing:

    One of the laudable by-products of the Freudian quackery is the discovery that lying, in most cases, is involuntary and inevitable—that the liar can no more avoid it than he can avoid blinking his eyes when a light flashes or jumping when a bomb goes off behind him.
    —H.L. (Henry Lewis)

    As if her velvet helmet high
    Did turret rationality.
    She fans her wing up to the winde
    As if her Pettycoate were lin’de
    With reasons fleece, and hoises saile
    And humming flies in thankfull gaile
    Edward Taylor (1645–1729)