Audio of this article is brought to you by the Air & Space Forces Association, honoring and supporting our Airmen, Guardians, and their families. Find out more at afa.org
2017 marks 70 years since the United States Air Force was established as an independent military service, but many of USAF’s entities trace their history back much further. In fact, 65 of today’s Active Duty, Air National Guard, and Air Force Reserve units have lineages dating back to World War I.
Most began their time as WW I-era Army aero squadrons, and many were stationed in France during the Great War. Over time, units have changed names, locations, equipment, and missions—sometimes repeatedly. They may have been inactivated and reactivated several times. The stories of these units and their airmen can fill volumes, and many official and unofficial histories are available online.
Today, a diverse collection of more than five dozen Air Force groups and squadrons trace their histories back a century or more, as in the case of the 1st Reconnaissance Squadron and 2nd Air Refueling Squadron. On the following pages are their patches—check them out.
Research by Mike Tsukamoto, photo editor, and Daniel L. Haulman, Air Force Historical Research Agency
Audio of this article is brought to you by the Air & Space Forces Association, honoring and supporting our Airmen, Guardians, and their families. Find out more at afa.org
The Department of the Air Force is giving Airman and Guardians until the end of the year to meet new requirements for ensuring they achieve a proper protective mask seal, part of Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s crackdown on unauthorized facial hair.
The Pentagon on Aug. 25 announced a pair of Air Force contracts to Raytheon and Boeing, totaling more than $766 million, for advance work on adding new radars to the B-52H Stratofortress.
The 13th Fighter Squadron from Misawa Air Base, Japan, deployed its new F-35A fighters to a major exercise for the first time, sending them to Pacific Air Forces’ premier air combat training event: Red Flag-Alaska.
For its latest special uniform celebrating the heritage of airpower, the U.S. Air Force Academy football team is looking to the future: the B-21 Raider.
The Space Force is exploring ways to incentivize acquisition leaders to leverage more commercial innovation across their programs, including a new “scorecard” to quantify their efforts.
U.S. Southern Command recently announced its first lethal strike on a suspected narco-trafficking vessel in two months, and the first under a newly formed permanent counter-cartel task force. The U.S. is also reportedly planning to transfer MQ-9 drones to Colombia to bolster its counter-cartel efforts.
The Air Force is planning to award Northrop Grumman a contract that could allow the RQ-4 Global Hawk to keep flying into 2033. The Air Force Life Cycle Management Center posted a presolicitation notice Aug. 17 saying it plans to award Northrop a sole-source contract for development, modernization, retrofit, and…
2nd Lt. Leah A. Borsich, an Air Force civil engineer, was among the eight people killed when a contractor plane crashed near a remote Alaskan radar site last week, officials announced Aug. 24.
