Active 1942-1944 Role Bombardment | Country United States | |
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Branch United States Army Air Forces | ||
The 473d Bombardment Squadron is an inactive United States Air Force unit. Its last was assigned to the 334th Bombardment Group, stationed at Greenville Army Air Base, South Carolina. It was inactivated on 1 May 1944.
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History
The 473d Bombardment Squadron was activated in the summer of 1942 as one of the four original squadrons of the 334th Bombardment Group at Greenville AAB, South Carolina. It operated as a North American B-25 Mitchell replacement training unit. Replacement training units were oversized units which trained aircrews prior to their deployment to combat theaters. However, the Army Air Forces found that standard military units, based on relatively inflexible tables of organization were proving less well adapted to the training mission. Accordingly, a more functional system was adopted in which each base was organized into a separate numbered unit. This resulted in the 471st, along with other units at Greenville, being disbanded in the spring of 1944 and being replaced by the 330th AAF Base Unit (Replacement Training Unit, Medium, Bombardment).