History
Activated as a B-17 Flying Fortress heavy bomb squadron; trained under Second Air Force. Completed training in early 1943; deploying to European Theater of Operations (ETO) assigned to VIII Bomber Command in England. Engaged in long-range strategic bombardment operations over Occupied Europe and Nazi Germany, March 1944-May 1945 attacking enemy military and industrial targets as part of the United States' air offensive against Nazi Germany. Most personnel demobilized in Europe after the German capitulation in May 1945; squadron inactivated as a paper unit in November.
Reactivated in 1947 as a B-29 Superfortress squadron in the reserves, however equipped with trainers until 1949 when equipped with B-26 Invader light bomber. Squadron activated in 1951 as a result of the Korean War; personnel and equipment assigned as replacements to units of Far East Air Forces, then inactivated as a paper unit.
Reactivated in 1952 with RB-26 Invader photo-reconnaissance aircraft; C-46 Commando transports; F-51 Mustangs. and other second-line aircraft. In 1957 reassigned to Massachusetts and re-equipped with C-119 Flying Boxcars for tactical airlift. Activated during Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962; returned to reserve status after crisis was resolved. In 1966 re-equipped with C-124 Globemasters for performing strategic airlift on a worldwide scale. Reassigned to various reserve wings; flying C-123 Providers until inactivation in 1982. Reactivated in Colorado in the reserves same date and equipped with C-130 Hercules.
Read more about this topic: 731st Airlift Squadron
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“Social history might be defined negatively as the history of a people with the politics left out.”
—G.M. (George Macaulay)
“I am ashamed to see what a shallow village tale our so-called History is. How many times must we say Rome, and Paris, and Constantinople! What does Rome know of rat and lizard? What are Olympiads and Consulates to these neighboring systems of being? Nay, what food or experience or succor have they for the Esquimaux seal-hunter, or the Kanaka in his canoe, for the fisherman, the stevedore, the porter?”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)