313th Air Expeditionary Wing


The 313th Air Expeditionary Wing is a provisional unit of the United States Air Forces Africa, Seventeenth Air Force. It was last stationed at Moron Air Base, Spain.

History

Organization and Berlin Airlift

The wing was first organized as the 313th Troop Carrier Wing at Bergstrom Field, Texas in July 1947, shortly after the arrival of its tactical element, the 313th Troop Carrier Group. The wing was created under the experimental wing base organization system, in which tactical and support organizations were brought together under a single wing. In August 1948, this organization was made permanent. The wing trained with Fairchild C-82 Packets and gliders at Bergstrom.
In July 1948, group deployed its 48th Troop Carrier Squadron to Rhein-Main Air Base to reinforce United States Air Forces in Europe in the Berlin Airlift. As winter approached and the demand for supplies increased, the wing and its operational units moved to RAF Fassberg, Germany, and began to operate Douglas C-54 Skymasters, with which it flew food, medicine and coal into Berlin. The wing's support elements did not join it at Fassberg, but instead deployed to RAF Burtonwood, England, where a major inspection and repair facility was managed by the United Kingdom Air Materiel Area's 59th Air Depot Wing to support the airlift. The wing drew its support from elements of the 513th Troop Carrier Wing, which were located at Fassberg. In January 1949, the 313th Wing was inactivated and its 313th Troop Carrier Group was assigned directly to the 1st Airlift Task Force, but attached to the 60th Troop Carrier Wing, which moved to Fassburg from Rhein Main.

Tactical Air Command

The wing was activated at Mitchel Air Force Base, New York on 1 February 1953, when it replaced the 514th Troop Carrier Wing, a reserve unit that had been mobilized for the Korean War. The 514th was in the process of converting from Curtiss C-46 Commandos to Fairchild C-119 Flying Boxcars, and the 313th took over its personnel and equipment. Meanwhile, Tactical Air Command was preparing the 465th Troop Carrier Group at Donaldson Air Force Base, South Carolina for deployment to France, but no wing headquarters or assigned support units were at Donaldson for the 465th Group. In August 1953, TAC inactivated the 313th Wing at Mitchel and replaced it and its support units with the 465th Troop Carrier Wing. The 313th Troop Carrier Group was reassigned directly to Eighteenth Air Force, but was attached to the new wing for the remainder of its stay at Mitchel.
In October 1964, the wing was activated at Forbes Air Force Base, Kansas. It was equipped with the Lockheed C-130 Hercules and organized under the dual deputy system, with its operational and maintenance squadrons assigned directly to wing headquarters. At Forbes, the wing trained in theater airlift operations and frequently deployed its squadrons to overseas locations to support contingency or rotational requirements. It was reduced to two operational squadrons in December 1965, when its 29th Troop Carrier Squadron deployed to the Pacific to support the Vietnam War and was reassigned the following month. In May 1967, along with all other TAC troop carrier units, the wing changed its name and became the 313th Tactical Airlift Wing. The wing was reduced to a single operational squadron, the 47th Tactical Airlift Squadron a month later, when the 48th Tactical Airlift Squadron was inactivated.
In June 1969, the wing assumed host responsibilities for Forbes from the 838th Air Division. The following month, it returned to two operational squadrons when the 38th Tactical Airlift Squadron moved to Forbes from Langley Air Force Base, Virginia. The 38th returned to Langley on paper in November 1971 and the 48th Squadron was reactivated, assuming its personnel and equipment. In 1973, the wing began to wind down its operations in preparation for the transfer of Forbes to the Kansas Air National Guard. The 29th Squadron moved to Dyess Air Force Base, Texas in July and the 48th to Little Rock Air Force Base, Arkansas in August. After their departure the wing concentrated on actions to close Forbes until it was inactivated on 30 September.

Expeditionary operations

The wing was converted to provisional status as the 313th Air Expeditionary Wing. It was activated on 30 March 2011 at Moron Air Base, Spain to support Operation Odyssey Dawn, a mission to enforce a no-fly zone put in place to protect the civilian population of Libya. The task of assembling the wing initially fell to the 171st Air Refueling Wing of the Pennsylvania Air National Guard, starting with two tankers that were already at Moron to support planes rotating to and from the Middle East. The first four tankers of the 171st arrived on the morning of 20 March. By the following day, the yet-to-be formally designated wing had grown to a mix of fifteen Boeing KC-135 Stratotankers and four McDonnell Douglas KC-10 Extenders, drawn from 14 different wings of the regular force, Air Force Reserve Command, and the Air National Guard. Looking at the mix of tail stripes on the planes he commanded, Brigadier General Uptegraff dubbed his unit the "Calico Wing."
Because Congress had not approved the mission, much of the wing's manning was on a volunteer bases, with funding drawn from money budgeted for other purposes. While operational control of the wing was assigned to United States Air Forces in Europe 's Seventeenth Air Force, deficiencies in manning and experience with air mobility operations led to a combined control between USAFE and Air Mobility Command. On 31 March, control of Odyssey Dawn was assumed by NATO, which named it Operation Unified Protector. On the same day, the confused command situation was emphasised when simultaneous orders from USAFE and AMC designated Uptegraff's wing both the 406th Air Expeditionary Wing, and the 313th Wing. Later accounts emphasize that Uptegraff focused on making sure operations continued, and that the 406th AEW only existed briefly. By late August, the wing had flown more than 2200 sorties and offloaded over 110,000,000 pounds of fuel to aircraft flying Unified Protector missions. The wing was inactivated when Unified Protector operations ended in October 2011.

Lineage

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Squadrons
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