920th Rescue Wing - History

History

The 920th Rescue Wing (RQW) traces its history and lineage to two distinct organizations within the Air Force Reserve.

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 920th 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-123 Provider transports for Tactical Air Command airlift operations.

The 920th TCG was one of three groups assigned to the 455th TCW in 1963, the others being the 918th Troop Carrier Group at Dobbins Air Force Base, Georgia, and the 919th Troop Carrier Group at Memphis Municipal Airport, Tennessee.

The 920th in its previous pre-rescue mission iteration trained for and performed military airlift missions from 1963 to 1965 and 1973 to 1975, initially with C-123 Provider and later with C-130 Hercules aircraft as part of the 445th Military Airlift Wing and 459th Tactical Airlift Wing, both at Memphis ANGB and at its subsequent base of Keesler AFB, Mississippi. Later redesignated as the 920th Weather Reconnaissance Group, it then flew weather reconnaissance missions with WC-130 Hercules aircraft, including flying into hurricanes from 1976 to 1983 as part of the 403rd Rescue and Weather Reconnaissance Wing at Keesler.