Active 1943–19451953–1968 Type Bombardment | ||
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The 764th Bombardment Squadron is an inactive United States Air Force unit. It was last assigned to the 461st Bombardment Wing. It was last stationed at Amarillo Air Force Base, Texas, and was inactivated on 28 March 1968.
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History
Established in mid-1943 as a B-24 Liberator heavy bomber squadron, it trained under the Second Air Force. The unit deployed to the Mediterranean Theater of Operations (MTO) in February 1944, being assigned to the Fifteenth Air Force in Southern Italy.
The squadron engaged in very long range strategic bombardment missions against enemy strategic targets in Italy, France, Germany, Austria, Czechoslovakia, Hungary and the Balkans until April 1945. It bombed aircraft factories, assembly plants, oil refineries, storage areas, marshalling yards, airdromes and other objectives until the German capitulation in May 1945.
Most squadron personnel were demobilized in Italy in May 1945 and it returned to the United States with a skeleton staff. Re-equipped and redesignated a B-29 Superfortress very heavy bomber squadron, it also received new personnel. It began training under the Second Air Force for planned deployment to the Western Pacific Area (WPA), however, the Japanese capitulation in August led to the inactivation of the squadron in October.
Reactivated in 1953 under the Tactical Air Command of the Ninth Air Force as a B-26 Invader light bombardment squadron, it became a B-57B Canberra unit, receiving their first aircraft in January 1955 at Hill AFB, Utah. In the summer of 1955, it moved to Blytheville AFB, Arkansas, the first TAC bomb squadron to be fully equipped with B-57s. After three years of service with the B-57s, the decision was made to phase them out in favor of supersonic aircraft, and in April 1958 its parent 461st BG began to inactivate at Blytheville AFB, the squadron inactivating in June.
Reactivated under Strategic Air Command (SAC) in 1963, it replaced a provisional B-52G Stratofortess squadron at Amarillo AFB, Texas.It performed intercontinental training and deployments, also standing nuclear alert. At the beginning of 1966, the squadron deployed personnel to forward bases in the Western Pacific, where they engaged in combat missions over Indochina as part of Operation Arc Light. The unit was inactivated in 1968 with the closure of Amarillo AFB and a reduction in the B-52 force, their role being taken over by ICBMs.