Role Range management | ||
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Active 1942-1945; 1947-1949; 1952-1965; 2012-present Part of Air Force Reserve Command Garrison/HQ Schriever Air Force Base | ||
The 379th Space Range Squadron is an Air Force Reserve unit. It is assigned to the 926th Wing, and is located at Schriever Air Force Base, Colorado.
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For most of its existence the unit was designated the 379th Bombardment Squadron, and was most recently stationed under that name at Shilling Air Force Base, Kansas, where it was inactivated on 25 March 1965.
World War II
Activated in mid-1942 at Davis-Monthan Field, Arizona as a North American B-25 Mitchell medium bomber squadron, but moved on paper the same day to Jackson Army Air Base, Mississippi. The squadron trained under Third Air Force in the southeastern United States. It was deployed initially to England in September 1942 and flew some missions under VIII Bomber Command over German-occupied France; attacking enemy troop formations, bridges and airfields. It was part of Operation Torch, the invasion of North Africa in November 1942, being deployed to the new Mediterranean Theater of Operations. The squadron was assigned to the Twelfth Air Force in French Morocco in November, when it was engaged primarily in support and interdictory operations, bombing marshalling yards, rail lines, highways, bridges, viaducts, troop concentrations, gun emplacements, shipping, harbors and other objectives in North Africa.
The squadron also engaged in psychological warfare missions, dropping propaganda leaflets behind enemy lines. It took part in the Allied operations against Axis forces in North Africa during March–May 1943, the reduction of Pantelleria and Lampedusa islands during June and the invasion of Sicily in July. It was also involved in the landing on the Italian mainland at Salerno in September, the Allied advance toward Rome during January–June 1944, Operation Dragoon, the invasion of Southern France in August 1944 and Allied operations in northern Italy from September 1944 to April 1945. It was inactivated in Italy after the German capitulation in September 1945.
Air Force Reserve
It was reactivated as part of the Air Force Reserve in 1947, although it is unclear whether or not the squadron was manned or equipped. It was inactivated in 1949.
Strategic Air Command
Reactivated in 1952 as a Strategic Air Command squadron, the unit received Boeing B-29 Superfortress bombardment training from the 90th Bombardment Wing between April and August 1952. It acted as a training squadron until 1954 when it replaced the propeller-driven B-29s with new Boeing B-47E Stratojet swept-wing medium bombers. These aircraft were capable of flying at high subsonic speeds and were primarily designed for penetrating the airspace of the Soviet Union. By the early 1960s, the B-47s were considered to be reaching obsolescence, and were being phased out of SAC's strategic arsenal. They were sent to AMARC at Davis-Monthan Air Force Base in early 1965. The squadron was inactivated in March.