History
Following the mobilizations in 1961 and 1962 for the Berlin Crisis and the Cuban Missile Crisis, Continental Air Command (ConAC) realized that it was unwieldy to mobilize an entire wing unless absolutely necessary. Their original Table of Organization for each Wing was a wing headquarters, a troop carrier group, an Air Base Group, a maintenance and supply group, and a medical group. In 1957, the troop carrier group and maintenance and supply groups were inactivated, with their squadrons reassigned directly to the wing headquarters - despite the fact that many wings had squadrons spread out over several bases due to the Detached Squadron Concept dispersing Reserve units over centers of population.
To resolve this, in late 1962 and early 1963, ConAC reorganized the structure of its reserve Troop Carrier Wings by establishing fully deployable Troop Carrier Groups and inserting them into the chain of command between the Wing and its squadrons at every base that held a ConAC troop carrier squadron. At each base, the group was composed of a material squadron, a troop carrier squadron, a tactical hospital or dispensary, and a combat support squadron. Each troop carrier wing consisted of 3 or 4 of these groups. By doing so, ConAC could facilitate the mobilization of either aircraft and aircrews alone, aircraft and minimum support personnel (one troop carrier group), or the entire troop carrier wing. This also gave ConAC the flexibility to expand each Wing by attaching additional squadrons, if necessary from other Reserve wings to the deployable groups for deployments.
As a result, the 913th Troop Carrier Group was established with a mission to organize, recruit and train Air Force Reserve personnel in the tactical airlift of airborne forces, their equipment and supplies and delivery of these forces and materials by airdrop, landing or cargo extraction systems. The group was equipped with C-119 Flying Boxcars for Tactical Air Command airlift operations.
The 913th TCG was one of three C-119 groups assigned to the 512th TCW in 1963, the others being the 912th Troop Carrier Group also at Willow Grove NAS, and the 914th Troop Carrier Group at Niagara Falls International Airport, New York.
The 913th performed air transportation for airborne forces, airdrops, airlandings, and extraction delivery of equipment and supplies, as well as airlift of personnel and cargo. During the Vietnam War the group also helped train Vietnamese Air Force C-119 Flying Boxcar aircrews in 1967 and ferried aircraft to Southeast Asia in March 1968 and to Taiwan in January 1969.
In 1970, the 913th transitioned from the C-119 to the C-130 Hercules. Beginning in 1977 the 913th participated in rotational "Coronet Oak" operations in the Panama Canal Zone flying airlift in support of U.S. Southern Command (USSOUTHCOM) at Howard AFB. In addition, it has performed humanitarian airlift and supported contingency operations worldwide, including operations in Southwest Asia and the Balkans.
The 913 AW was inactivated on 30 Sep 2007 pursuant to Base Realignment and Closure (BRAC) 2005 action, with its C-130 Hercules aircraft redistributed to other active duty Air Force and Air Force Reserve airlift units.
Read more about this topic: 913th Airlift Wing
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“There is a constant in the average American imagination and taste, for which the past must be preserved and celebrated in full-scale authentic copy; a philosophy of immortality as duplication. It dominates the relation with the self, with the past, not infrequently with the present, always with History and, even, with the European tradition.”
—Umberto Eco (b. 1932)
“The history of our era is the nauseating and repulsive history of the crucifixion of the procreative body for the glorification of the spirit.”
—D.H. (David Herbert)
“We are told that men protect us; that they are generous, even chivalric in their protection. Gentlemen, if your protectors were women, and they took all your property and your children, and paid you half as much for your work, though as well or better done than your own, would you think much of the chivalry which permitted you to sit in street-cars and picked up your pocket- handkerchief?”
—Mary B. Clay, U.S. suffragist. As quoted in History of Woman Suffrage, vol. 4, ch. 3, by Susan B. Anthony and Ida Husted Harper (1902)