86th Airlift Wing: Difference between revisions

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86th Airlift Wing
86th Airlift Wing emblem
Active	13 January 1942 — present
Country	United States
Branch	Air Force
Type	Airlift
Part of	United States Air Forces in Europe
Garrison/HQ	Ramstein Air Base
Decorations	Distinguished Unit Citation Air Force Outstanding Unit Award
Commanders
Current commander	Colonel William Bender
Notable commanders	Wilbur L. Creech Robert C. Oaks George B. Simler

The 86th Airlift Wing (86 AW) is a United States Air Force wing, currently assigned to the United States Air Forces in Europe. The 86th AW is stationed at Ramstein Air Base, Germany

The wing’s primary mission is to conduct airlift, airdrop and aeromedical evacuation operations flying the C-21, C-20H, C-37, C40B and C-130E aircraft. The 86th Airlift Wing commander also serves as the Kaiserslautern Military Community (KMC) commander, leading the largest American community outside the United States.

The 86th Airlift Wing is composed of four groups, 14 squadrons and one detachment. These are:

The 779th Expeditionary Airlift Flight was activated in January 2008 to administer a rotational deployment of two C-17 Globemaster IIIs to be based at Ramstein AB.^[1] The exact reporting chain for the 779th EAF is not known.

• Constituted as 86th Bombardment Group (Light) on 13 Jan 1942

Activated on 10 Feb 1942

Redesignated: 86th Bombardment Group (Dive) in Sep 1942

Redesignated: 86th Fighter-Bomber Group in Aug 1943

Redesignated: 86th Fighter Group in May 1944

Redesignated: 86th Composite Group in May 1947

Redesignated: 86th Fighter Group in Jan 1948

• Established as 86th Fighter Wing, and activated, on 1 Jul 1948

(86th Fighter Group assigned to wing as subordinate unit)

Redesignated: 86th Fighter-Bomber Wing on 20 Jan 1950

Redesignated: 86th Fighter-Interceptor Wing on 9 Aug 1954

Redesignated: 86th Air Division (Defense) on 18 Nov 1960

Inactivated on 14 Nov 1968.

• Redesignated: 86th Fighter-Interceptor Wing on 14 Nov 1968
• Redesignated: 86th Tactical Fighter Wing on 13 Oct 1969.

Activated on 1 Nov 1969

Redesignated: 86th Fighter Wing on 1 May 1991

Redesignated: 86th Wing on 1 Jun 1992

Redesignated: 86th Airlift Wing on 1 Oct 1994.

Group

• 86 Fighter (later, 86 Fighter-Bomber; 86 Fighter-Interceptor; 86 Tactical Fighter; 86 Operations)

1 Jul 1948-8 Mar 1958; 22 Sep 1975-14 Jun 1985; 1 May 1991-.

Squadrons

Activated on 10 Feb 1942, the 86th Fighter Group at Will Rogers Field, near Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, trained in the United States for several months until moving to North Africa in September 1942, being assigned to the Twelfth Air Force Northwest African Training Command, at La Senia, Algeria in early May 1943.

In the Western Desert Campaign, the 86th flew A-36 Mustangs, P-40 Warhawks and later P-47 Thunderbolts engaging primarily in close support of ground forces, beginning in early July against German positions in Tunisia. Later that month, the group moved to Sicily, where it attacked German forces retreating across the island and evacuating to the southern coast of the Italian mainland.

The 86th provided air support for Allied landings at Salerno in September 1943 and later that month moved from Sicily to the beachhead area. During the winter of 1943-1944, the group supported advancing Allied forces in Italy by attacking enemy lines of communication, troop concentrations, and supply areas. It also attacked rail and road targets and strafed German troop and supply columns during late spring, earning a Distinguished Unit Citation (DCU) for outstanding action against the enemy on 25 May.

In July, 1944 the group moved to the island of Corsica, from which it attacked enemy-held road and rail networks in northern Italy. It supported the Allied invasion of southern France in August, the 86th escorted bombers attacking coastal defenses. In September the group moved back to Italy and began attacking transportation lines in the Po Valley. In February 1945, the group moved into southeast France and began attacking enemy targets such as rail lines, roads, supply dumps, and airdromes in southern Germany. The group again moved, this time to Germany, in April. It earned a second DUC for concentrated attacks on enemy transportation targets on 20 April. By 8 May, the group had flown a total of 3,645 combat missions.

Just after the war, the group performed occupation duty at Braunschardt and Schweinfurt Germany as part of the United States Air Forces in Europe (USAFE). It moved without personnel or equipment to Bolling Field in Washington, D.C., in February, 1946, where it inactivated at the end of March.

The 86th Fighter Group was reactivated in Germany on 20 Aug 1946, being assigned to USAFE and being stationed at Nordholz Air Base, near Bremerhaven. Equipped with P (later F-47) Thunderbolts, the 86th was one of two active USAF fighter units in Germany (the other being the 36th FG) during the immediate postwar years. Over the next several years, the 86th underwent several redesignations and several station assignments in occupied Germany. In June 1948, the 86th Fighter Group was stationed at Neubiberg Air Base, near Munich when tensions with the Soviet Union culminated in the Berlin Blockade.

At the dawn of the Cold War, USAFE strength was low both in quantity and quality. The wartime F-47s of the 86th Fighter Group was pressed into service, flying patrols along the American and British side of the Soviet occupation zone border as a deterrent to Soviet fighters intruding on western airspace.

On 28 September 1950, the 27th Fighter-Escort Wing flew en-masse Republic F-84E Thunderjets across the Atlantic to West Germany. The F-84s replaced the F-47s of the 86th and helped USAFE modernize its arsenal. With the arrival of the jets, the unit was redesignated as the 86th Fighter-Bomber Wing.

With the arrival of the jet age in Europe, USAFE wanted to move its units west of the Rhine River, as its bases in the Munich area were just a few minutes flying time from Soviet Mig-15 bases in Czechoslovakia. In February 1951, the United States and France signed an agreement in which USAF bases in their German occupation zone would be built and made available to USAFE. The largest base was built near the towns of Landstuhl and Ramstein on a site where during World War II, first the Luftwaffe and later the USAAF had used a long stretch of Autobahn as an airfield. The new base would actually consist of two sections, one along the Autobahn (Landstuhl AB) and one just north (Ramstein). Other bases in the French sector that were built for the USAF were Bitburg, Spangdahlem, Sembach and Hahn.

In late 1952, enough construction was completed at Landstuhl and the 86th Fighter-Bomber Wing was reassigned to the new base. The 86th Wing (under various designations) has been assigned to Ramstein for almost 60 years, with a brief period (1966-1973) being inactive or assigned to Zweibrucken Air Base.

It was activated again in Germany later that year for occupation duty. The 86th provided air defense, primarily in West Germany, July 1948–November 1968, initially as a wing but later as an air division. During its eight years as an air division, the organization supervised the improvement of a manual radar system to a semi-automatic air weapons control system. From November 1969 to June 1971, it was charged only with tactical reconnaissance, but added tactical fighter operations later in 1971. Between September 1975 and June 1985, the wing trained and provided tactical air capability in Europe for the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). After activation again in Germany in May 1991, deployed to Turkey and flew fighter missions to enforce no-fly zones in northern Iraq and Bosnia and Herzegovina, twice attacking Iraqi surface-to-air missile (SAM) sites in northern Iraq.

The 86th gained some airlift capability in 1992 and became strictly an airlift unit in 1994, trading its F-16 fighters for C-130 transports. During the 1990s, the wing supported peacekeeping and humanitarian aid airlift operations in the Balkans, Africa, and Southwest Asia.

• World War II
• Operation Iraqi Freedom
• Operation Enduring Freedom
• Operation Northern Watch
• Operation Support Hope
• Operation Unified Assistance

The 86th Airlift Wing has been awarded the Air Force Outstanding Unit Award six times.^[2]

• Air Force Outstanding Unit Award
  • 1 Jul 93 - 30 Jun 95
  • 1 Jul 96 - 30 Jun 97
  • 24 Mar 99 - 10 Jun 99
  • 1 Jan 01 - 31 Dec 01
  • 1 Jan 02 - 31 Dec 02
  • 1 Jan 07 - 31 Dec 07

• Maurer, Maurer (1983). Air Force Combat Units Of World War II. Maxwell AFB, Alabama: Office of Air Force History. ISBN 0892010924.
• Ravenstein, Charles A. (1984). Air Force Combat Wings Lineage and Honors Histories 1947-1977. Maxwell AFB, Alabama: Office of Air Force History. ISBN 0912799129.
• USAAS-USAAC-USAAF-USAF Aircraft Serial Numbers--1908 to present

• Ramstein AFB Home Page