| Unit Name: | 459th Airlift Squadron |
| Dates: | 1942–1944; 1944–1945; 1952–1952; 1966–1970; 1975–1993; 1993–present |
| Role: | Airlift |
| Command Structure: | Pacific Air Forces |
| Garrison: | Yokota Air Base |
| Decorations: | Distinguished Unit Citation Presidential Unit Citation Air Force Outstanding Unit Award Republic of Vietnam Gallantry Cross with Palm |
| Identification Symbol Label: | 459th Airlift Squadron emblem[1] |
| Identification Symbol 2 Label: | 459th Airlift Squadron emblem[2] |
| Identification Symbol 3 Label: | 459th Bombardment Squadron emblem |
The 459th Airlift Squadron is an active United States Air Force unit assigned to the 374th Airlift Wing at Yokota Air Base, Japan. It has been stationed at Yokota since 1993. It has performed its current mission since activating in 1975 as the 1400th Military Airlift Squadron. The 1400th Squadron was consolidated with the 459th in 1991.
The squadron was first activated during World War II as the 459th Bombardment Squadron. It was a replacement training unit for heavy bomber crews until being inactivated in the spring of 1944 when the Army Air Forces reorganized its training and support units in the United States. It was reactivated the same day as a Boeing B-29 Superfortress unit. The unit deployed to the Pacific Ocean Theater in early 1945 and participated in the strategic bombing campaign against Japan until V-J Day, earning two Distinguished Unit Citations for its actions. The squadron returned to the United States in December 1945 and was inactivated.
The squadron was redesignated the 459th Troop Carrier Squadron and activated in the reserve in 1952, but was quickly inactivated as reserve units that had been mobilized for the Korean War were released from active duty. As the Air Force assumed the light airlift mission from the Army, the squadron was again activated on New Year's Day 1967. It served in combat in Vietnam until June 1970, earning an additional Presidential Unit Citation and three Air Force Outstanding Unit Awards with Combat "V" Device before inactivating in theater.
The squadron operates Bell UH-1N Twin Huey and Beechcraft C-12J Huron aircraft, performing passenger transport (including VIPs), aeromedical evacuation and search and rescue missions.[3]
The squadron was first activated at Salt Lake City Army Air Base, Utah on 6 July 1942 as one of the original four squadrons of the 330th Bombardment Group.[1] [4] [5] Although equipped early on with some Boeing B-17 Flying Fortresses, it became a Consolidated B-24 Liberator Operational Training Unit (OTU), moving to Biggs Field, Texas by early September.[1] The OTU program was patterned after the unit training system of the Royal Air Force and involved the use of an oversized parent unit to provide cadres to "satellite groups"[6] It then assumed responsibility for their training and oversaw their expansion with graduates of Army Air Forces Training Command schools to become effective combat units.[7] [8] Phase I training concentrated on individual training in crewmember specialties. Phase II training emphasized the coordination for the crew to act as a team. The final phase concentrated on operation as a unit.[9]
By early 1944 most units had been activated and almost three quarters of them had deployed overseas. With the exception of special programs, like forming Boeing B-29 Superfortress units, training “fillers” for existing units became more important than unit training.[10] The squadron then became a Replacement Training Unit (RTU).[1] RTUs were also oversized unit, but their mission was to train individual pilots or aircrews.[6]
However, the Army Air Forces was finding that standard military units like the 459th, whose manning was based on relatively inflexible tables of organization were proving not well adapted to the training mission, even more so to the replacement mission. Accordingly, the Army Air Forces adopted a more functional system in which each base was organized into a separate numbered unit.[11] As a result, the 330th Bombardment Group and its components, including the 459th, along with all supporting units at Biggs were inactivated or disbanded on 1 April 1944[1] [4] and replaced by the 235th AAF Base Unit (Combat Crew Training School, Bombardment, Very Heavy).[12]
The squadron was activated the same day at Walker Army Air Field, Kansas as a Boeing B-29 unit. While waiting for new B-29s to come off the production line, it again flew B-17 Flying Fortresses for a short time. It trained at Walker and at Dalhart Army Air Field, Texas until January 1945, when it deployed to the Pacific.[1]
The squadron arrived at its combat station, North Field, Guam in the Mariana Islands in early February 1945.[1] Because the results of high altitude B-29 raids on Japan were disappointing. XXI Bomber Command switched to low altitude night area attacks with incendiaries beginning in March 1945.[13] It flew its first combat mission, an attack on the Hodogaya chemical plant in Koriyama, Japan on 12 April 1945.[4]
During April and May 1945, the squadron was diverted from the strategic campaign against Japan to support Operation Iceberg, the invasion of Okinawa.[4] It struck air bases from which kamikaze attacks were being launched. Many of these bases were located on Kyushu, only 300 miles from Okinawa. The attacks directly impacted kamikaze launches, but also forced the Japanese military to retain fighter aircraft to defend the Japanese Special Attack Units that otherwise might have been used to challenge air superiority over Okinawa.[14]
The squadron resumed attacking urban industrial areas until the end of the war in August 1945. It was awarded a Distinguished Unit Citation (DUC) for incendiary raids on the industrial sections of Tokushima and Gifu and a strike against the hydroelectrical power center at Kofu in July 1945. It received a second DUC for a mission attacking the Nakajima aircraft engine plant at Musashino near Tokyo in August.[4]
Following V-J Day the squadron dropped food and supplies to Allied prisoners of war and participated in several show of force missions over Japan. It departed the theater in November and was inactivated at Camp Anza, the Port of Embarkation in December 1945.[1] [4]
The reserve mobilization for the Korean War had left the reserve without aircraft. In September 1951, Continental Air Command (ConAC) formed the 917th Reserve Training Wing to train reservists at Greater Pittsburgh Airport, Pennsylvania.[15] Anticipating the return of mission aircraft to reserve units, ConAC replaced the 917th Wing with the 330th Troop Carrier Wing on 14 June 1952.[16] The squadron was redesignated the 459th Troop Carrier Squadron and activated the same day.[1] It is not clear whether the squadron possessed its own aircraft or flew the Curtiss C-46 Commandos of the 2253rd Air Force Reserve Training Center, which was responsible for its training.[16] However, this activation was short lived, as the 330th was replaced by the 375th Troop Carrier Wing, which was released from active duty on 14 July 1952, and which had been mobilizedat Greater Pittsburgh in 1951.[16] [17] The 459th was inactivated and transferred its personnel to the 57th Troop Carrier Squadron, which was simultaneously activated.[1] [18]
In August 1966, the Air Force and the Army began implementing Project Red Leaf, which would transfer responsibility for the de Havilland Canada C-7 Caribou from the Army to the Air Force following the Johnson-McConnell agreement of 1966. At Qui Nhon Airfield, South Vietnam, Air Force personnel began being assigned to the 92nd Aviation Company. The Department of Defense had ordered that the 483d Tactical Airlift Wing's new squadrons be located on Air Force installations, not on Army posts, and the cadre of the wing at Cam Ranh Bay Air Base began planning to move squadron level operations from the small Army camps they were operating from to permanent sites when the Air Force units were activated.[19] In December, the company began moving to Phu Cat Air Base, although Phu Cat only had a 3000feet laterite strip at the time and it was not until April that permanent facilities and a 10000feet runway was ready for use.[20] On 1 January 1967, the 459th Squadron was organized and took over Caribou operations from the 92nd Company.[1] [21]
The squadron provided intratheater airlift to support United States military civic actions, combat support and civic assistance throughout the Republic of Vietnam.[22] This included airland and airdrop assault missions. It also maintained detachments at Da Nang Air Base and Pleiku Air Base.[21] The Da Nang detachment undertook many of the tasks in the northern area of South Viet Nam formerly performed by Fairchild C-123 Providers. It made runs to Civilian Irregular Defense Group camps and the US Army posts nearby. The Pleiku detachment not only supported nearby special forces units, but flew a daily passenger run linking Pleiku, Camp Holloway, Qui Nhon Airfield, Tuy Hoa Air Base and Cam Ranh Bay. In the summer of 1967, Pleiku operations were taken over by the 457th and 458th Tactical Airlift Squadrons, operating from Cam Ranh Bay as the squadron shifted its operations to the coastal provinces north of Qui Nhon.[23]
In April 1970, the squadron helped break the siege of Dak Seang Special Forces Camp.[24] North Vietnamese forces had surrounded the camp, and learning from the success of air resupply during their 1969 attack on the Ben Het Camp, also established anti-aircraft artillery positions along likely air resupply corridors. On the first day of the siege, two C-7s were diverted from their scheduled missions and staged out of Pleiku to make the first airdrops to the camp. Resupply of the camp was so urgent that all drop-qualified crews of the 483rd Tactical Airlift Wing were ordered to Pleiku to support the operation and eleven sorties were flown that day with cover from Douglas A-1 Skyraiders. Crews approached the camp from the north or south to use terrain to mask their approaches from enemy flak. Loss of the third Caribou in five days prompted a move to resupply the camp with night drops, with cover and illumination provided by Fairchild AC-119 Stinger gunships. All 483rd Wing squadrons participated in the operation.[25] It earned a second Presidential Unit Citation for this action, evacuation of over 2000 refugees from Cambodia, and transportation of the Presidential Southeast Asia Investigation Team to various remote locations in South Vietnam.[26]
The squadron was inactivated in June 1970 with the beginning of the withdrawal of the United States military from Viet Nam.[1] [22]
The second predecessor of the squadron was activated at Norton Air Force Base, California on 1 April 1975 as the 1400th Military Airlift Squadron and assigned to the 89th Military Airlift Wing.[1] The 1401st was one of the squadrons formed when the Air Force decided to consolidate its administrative airlift fleet under Military Airlift Command.[27] The Air Force also decided the administrative airlift fleet would become all jet, using North American T-39 Sabreliners, although the 459th also flew turboprop powered Beechcraft C-12 Hurons. In 1978, the administrative airlift squadrons transferred to the 375th Aeromedical Airlift Wing, and until 1991, it also flew aeromedical evacuation missions. In 1984, it converted from the Sabreliner to the Learjet C-21. In December 1991, the two squadrons were consolidated as the 459th Airlift Squadron.[1]
In 1989, the Base Closure Commission recommended that Norton be closed. As a result, in October 1992 the squadron moved to nearby March Air Force Base, California, where it was assigned to the 22d Operations Group. However, March was shortly being transferred to Air Force Reserve Command. As a result, the squadron was inactivated on 1 October 1993.
The squadron was activated the same day at Yokota Air Base, Japan, where it was equipped with Bell UH-1N Twin Hueys. It operates four of them.[28] In 2016, two of the squadron's Twin Hueys were equipped with hoists, giving them the ability to participate in search and rescue missions.[29] Until 2007, it also operated the C-21 Learjet. It swapped them for C-12J Hurons, and operates 75% of the Air Force's "J" model Hurons.[30] Since 2017, the squadron's C-12Js have been the primary aeromedical evacuation aircraft in the western Pacific.[31]
459th Airlift Squadron
Activated on 6 July 1942
Inactivated on 1 April 1944
Inactivated on 21 December 1945
Activated in the reserve on 14 June 1952
Inactivated on 14 July 1952
Organized on 1 January 1967
Redesignated 459th Tactical Airlift Squadron on 1 August 1967
Inactivated on 1 June 1970
Inactivated on 1 October 1993
Activated on 1 October 1993[1]
1400th Military Airlift Squadron
| Campaign Streamer | Campaign | Dates | Notes | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| American Theater without inscription | 6 July 1942–1 April 1944, 1 April 1944–7 January 1945 | 459th Bombardment Squadron | ||
| Air Offensive, Japan | 18 February 1945–2 September 1945 | 459th Bombardment Squadron | ||
| Western Pacific | 17 April 1945–2 September 1945 | 459th Bombardment Squadron | ||
| Vietnam Air Offensive | 1 January 1966–8 March 1967 | 459th Troop Carrier Squadron | ||
| Vietnam Air Offensive, Phase II | 9 March 1967–31 March 1968 | 459th Troop Carrier Squadron (later 459th Tactical Airlift Squadron) | ||
| Vietnam Air/Ground 1968 | 22 January 1968–7 July 1968 | 459th Tactical Airlift Squadron | ||
| Vietnam Air Offensive, Phase III | 1 April 1968–31 October 1968 | 459th Tactical Airlift Squadron | ||
| Vietnam Air Offensive, Phase IV | 1 November 1968–22 February 1969 | 459th Tactical Airlift Squadron | ||
| Tet 1969/Counteroffensive | 23 February 1969–8 June 1969 | 459th Tactical Airlift Squadron | ||
| Vietnam Summer-Fall 1969 | 9 June 1969–31 October 1969 | 459th Tactical Airlift Squadron | ||
| Vietnam Winter-Spring 1970 | 3 November 1969–30 April 1970 | 459th Tactical Airlift Squadron | ||
| Sanctuary Counteroffensive | 1 May 1970–1 June 1970 | 459th Tactical Airlift Squadron |