Country United States | Type Wing Part of Air Force ISR Agency | |
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Active 1943–1944, 1985 – present | ||
The 480th Intelligence, Surveillance, and Reconnaissance Wing (480th ISR Wing) is headquartered at Langley Air Force Base, Virginia.
Contents
Overview
The 480th ISR Wing leads Air Force globally networked ISR operations. The wing operates and maintains the Air Force Distributed Common Ground System (DCGS), also known as the AN/GSQ-272 "Sentinel" weapon system, conducting imagery, cryptologic, and measurement and signatures intelligence activities. The unit processes twenty terabytes of data each day.
The wing employs more than 4,100 people. In addition, more than 700 Air Reserve Component members volunteered to augment the wing's team as it engages in the War on Terrorism. In total, the 480th ISR Wing operates and manages $5 billion of intelligence resources.
Organization
History
The wing traces its history back to 1943 when it was formed as the 480th Antisubmarine Group. In 1951, it became the 580th Air Resupply and Communications Wing, and it inactivated in 1953. The wing was officially redesignated the 480th Intelligence Wing and reactivated 1 December 2003. It was organized under Eighth Air Force, Barksdale Air Force Base, Louisiana, and Air Combat Command, Langley Air Force Base, Virginia. Air Force officials announced 14 January 2008, the transfer of the 480th Intelligence Wing from 8th AF to the Air Force Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance Agency.
480th Antisubmarine Group
The group was formed on June 19, 1943, at Port Lyautey, French Morocco in North Africa, as one of the unit's of the Army Air Forces Antisubmarine Command during World War II. The group came from squadrons at RAF St Eval, England who deployed to Port Lyautey as the 2037th Antisubmarine Wing (Provisional) the previous March after training with RAF Coastal Command in aerial anti-submarine warfare techniques.
The anti-submarine group's mission was to shore up scanty Allied antisubmarine defenses in the Atlantic approaches to the Straits of Gibraltar. U-boats had very recently sunk four ships in an Allied convoy about a hundred miles off the coast of Portugal. Over the long term, the Allies wanted to increase air antisubmarine patrols and convoy coverage to protect their preparations for the impending Tunisian offensive and the subsequent invasion of Sicily.
Using modified B-24 Liberator bombers equipped with RADAR, external fuel tanks and other antisubmarine equipment, the group's 1st and 2d Antisubmarine Squadrons joined two United States Navy PBY Catalina squadrons patrolling the Atlantic Ocean north and west from Morocco. The two squadrons were assigned to the Northwest African Coastal Air Force for administration and placed under the operational control of the United States Navy Fleet Air Wing 15, which answered to the commander of the Moroccan Sea Frontier.
The AAF squadrons flew their first mission on March 19, 1943 despite shortages of spare parts, equipment, and maintenance personnel. Ordinarily, three B-24s flew daily on operational missions, covering an area as far south as 30°N, as far north as Cape Finisterre, Spain, and as far west as a thousand nautical miles from Port Lyautey. Much of the time, the Liberators flew convoy coverage for ships sailing from or approaching the Straits of Gibraltar. Its antisubmarine activity reached a peak in July 1943 when enemy U-boats concentrated off the coast of Portugal to intercept convoys bound for the Mediterranean. The group destroyed and damaged several submarines during the month which aided in protecting supply lines to forces involved in the campaign for Sicily. At the time, the group was under the command of Colonel Jack Roberts and assigned to the Northwest African Coastal Air Force under the command of Air Vice-Marshal Hugh Lloyd, but they operated under the control of USN FAW-15 at Port Lyautey, French Morocco, now Kenitra, Morocco.
The group also covered convoys and engaged numerous Luftwaffe aircraft in combat. In September, part of the group deployed to Protville Tunisia located between Tunis, on the east coast and Bizerte, on the north coast about thirty-five miles northwest of Tunis. For the first fourteen days, the 1st Squadron operated under the Northwest African Coastal Air Force. On 4 September, the B-24s began searching for enemy submarines and shipping between Sicily and Naples. the squadron covered this area twenty-four hours a day until the landing of the United States Fifth Army at Salerno, Italy, on 9 September, when it extended antisubmarine patrols to cover the sea west of Sardinia and Corsica. One B-24 destroyed three German flying boats northwest of Sardinia. In addition to the antisubmarine patrols, the 1st Squadron flew escort for several Allied convoys and covered the escape of Italian naval vessels from Genoa and Spezia to Malta following Italy's surrender.
After returning to Port Lyautey on September 18, the 1st Squadron operated in the Moroccan Sea Frontier until it moved to Langley Field Virginia in November. That return to the United States marked the final stage in the Air Force's withdrawal from its antisubmarine mission. The 480th was disbanded on January 29, 1944.
The 480th Antisubmarine Group was awarded a Distinguished Unit Citation in 1944 for its actions from November 10, 1942 to October 28, 1943 that contributed to the winning of the Battle of the Atlantic.
580th Air Resupply and Communications Wing
The 580th Air Resupply and Communications Wing (ARCW) was activated at Mountain Home AFB, Idaho, in April 1951.
First-year activities for the 580th was devoted to training aircrew and support personnel in their new PSYWAR mission and in rebuilding Mountain Home AFB, which had fallen into disrepair since the end of World War II.
"A B-29 assigned to the 581st Air Resupply Squadron, 580th Air Resupply and Communications Wing (ARCW), based at Mountain Home AFB, Idaho, conducted trials at Eglin AFB, during the summer of 1951 to determine if the aircraft could be used to extract personnel utilizing the prototype Personnel Pickup Ground Station extraction system. The test aircraft was modified with a 48-inch diameter opening in place of the aft-belly turret and with an elongated tailhook at the rear of the aircraft. The system was similar to the one adopted in 1952 by Fifth Air Force for the C-47 Skytrains of the Special Air Missions detachment in Korea. The tests proved technically feasible, but the project was dropped for the B-29 aircraft due to aircraft size and safety considerations of flying it so close to the ground."
In July and September 1952 the 580th ARCW, which had been stationed at Mountain Home AFB since its activation, embarked its support personnel by way of ship to North Africa for its initial deployment overseas. Assigned B-29s flew out of Westover AFB, Massachusetts, with a planned refueling and overnight crew rest stop in the Azores en route to Wheelus AB, Libya. The C-119s and SA-16s, with a much shorter range than the B-29s, took a northern route through Iceland, England, and Italy before arriving in Libya.
Life at Wheelus AB for the 580th was Spartan, at best, for the first six months of operations. Personnel lived and worked in tents enduring the sweltering summer heat of North Africa. Low-level training was emphasized for the aircrews. The B-29s and C-119s flew low over the Mediterranean Sea, and flew 500 feet above the Libyan desert. In January 1954 a B-29 was lost during a low-level training mission when it failed to clear a ridgeline.
A primary customer for the 580th was the 10th Special Forces Group (Airborne) (10th SFG) (A) which was garrisoned at Bad Tölz, West Germany, in the Bavarian Alps. Tenth Group personnel would deploy to Libya for parachute and desert survival training. Dropping at 1,000 feet above the ground, B-29 navigators utilized the Norden bombsight developed during World War II to determine the release point. The bombsight proved to be equally as accurate at 1,000 feet as it had been dropping bombs at high altitude during World War II.
Assigned SA-16s were tasked to fly classified courier missions throughout the Mediterranean, Middle East, and southern Europe. The amphibian aircraft proved to be versatile and on several occasions was tasked to fly extremely sensitive missions, including ones into the Balkans behind the so-called Iron Curtain and into southern Russia. Operating out of Tehran, Iran, in March 1956, an SA-16 penetrated Soviet airspace at low-level altitude en route to a night amphibious exfiltration from the Caspian Sea. The mission went as planned, resulting in the successful exfiltration of a man, woman, and two children. The family was flown directly to a water rendezvous in the Mediterranean Sea and from there transferred to an awaiting ship.
In September 1953, after the Korean Armistice was signed that ended active conflict on the Korean peninsula and three months before inactivation of the ARCS, the three active wings were reduced to air resupply groups. The downsized 580th ARG was approximately one-half the size of the former wing and consisted of two squadrons – one flying squadron and one support squadron.
Headquarters Seventeenth Air Force, dated 12 October 1956, inactivated the 580th ARG in place in Libya.
Lineage
480th Antisubmarine Group
580th Air Resupply and Communications Wing
Consolidated Unit
Assignments
Components
Groups
Squadrons