1st Fighter Wing
The 1st Fighter Wing is a United States Air Force unit assigned to the Air Combat Command Fifteenth Air Force. It is stationed at Langley Air Force Base, VA. where it is a tenant unit, being supported by the 633d Air Base Wing.
Its 1st Operations Group is a successor organization of the 1st Fighter Group, one of the 15 original combat air groups formed by the Army before World War II. The 1 OG is the oldest major air combat unit in the United States Air Force, its origins formed on 5 May 1918.
The wing was initially part of Tactical Air Command being formed at March Field, California in 1947 and was one of the first wings to be equipped with the North American F-86 Sabre in February 1949. Briefly a part of Strategic Air Command in 1949, it was reassigned to Air Defense Command in 1950 and provided air defense of the Upper Midwest of the United States until being reassigned to Tactical Air Command in 1970. The 1 FW was the first operational wing equipped with the F-15A/B Eagle in 1976, and in 2005, was the first operational wing equipped with the Lockheed Martin F-22 Raptor air superiority fighter.
History
Origins
The 1st Fighter Wing was activated at March Field California on 15 August 1947. It was assigned to Twelfth Air Force, Tactical Air Command.In December 1948 Twelfth Air Force was assigned from Tactical Air Command to Continental Air Command, established on 1 December 1948. ConAC assumed jurisdiction over both TAC and the Air Defense Command. This move reflected an effort to concentrate all fighter forces deployed within the continental United States to strengthen the air defense of the North American continent. The move was largely an administrative convenience: the units assigned to ConAC were dual-trained and expected to revert to their primary strategic or tactical roles after the air defense battle was won. The 1st Fighter Wing was subsequently transferred from Twelfth Air Force/TAC to Fourth Air Force/ConAC on 20 December 1948. Organizational and equipment changes continued throughout 1949. The first F-86 Sabre, assigned to the 94th Fighter Squadron, arrived on 15 February. By the end of June the wing had received seventy-nine of its eighty-three authorized F-86s. On 1 May the wing transferred from ConAC to Strategic Air Command and the Fifteenth Air Force. The wing was subsequently attached to the 22d Bombardment Wing on 1 July.
At March, the wing trained in large formation flying and competed to establish various formation records. The 71st Fighter Squadron struck first in September 1949, when it launched a twelve and later an eighteen-aircraft formation. The 27th and the 94th countered on 21 October. On that day the 94th launched three thirteen-plane formations, but the 27th topped this with two twenty-one plane formations, The purpose of this exercise became clear in early January 1950, when the wing deployed a sizable contingent of aircraft to participate in the filming of the RKO film Jet Pilot. The group claimed a final formation record on 4 January when it passed a twenty-four plane formation before the cameras. The group formed its own aerial demonstration team in January 1950. The team, dubbed the "Sabre Dancers", was composed of five members of the 27th Fighter Squadron. The Sabre Dancers made what was probably their most widely viewed flight on 22 April 1950, when they performed before an Armed Forces Day audience at Eglin AFB, Florida, that included President Harry S. Truman, most of his Cabinet, and numerous other political leaders.
Air Defense Command
Korean War era
Effective 16 April 1950 the 1st Fighter Wing was redesignated the 1st Fighter-Interceptor Wing, the same designation that was simultaneously applied to the group and its three squadrons. The wing had, some days previously, been relieved from its attachment to the 22d Bombardment Wing. The organizational changes the wing had experienced since 1947 paled in comparison to the multitude of changes the unit underwent during the last six months of 1950. As of 30 June 1950, the 1st Fighter-Interceptor Group was assigned to the 1st Fighter-Interceptor Wing, which was itself assigned to Fifteenth Air Force and SAC. On 1 July the wing was relieved from assignment to Fifteenth Air Force and SAC and assigned to the Fourth Air Force and ConAC.Two days later the wing issued orders establishing advanced parties of its headquarters and component organizations at Victorville AFB, California. On 22 July an advanced party of personnel from Headquarters, 1st Fighter-Interceptor Group and the 27th and 71st Fighter-Interceptor Squadrons departed for Griffiss AFB, New York. A letter directing the wing to send the group headquarters and the 27th and the 71st to Griffiss for attachment to the Eastern Air Defense Force, ConAC, arrived on 30 July. Headquarters, 1st Fighter-Interceptor Wing and the 94th Fighter-Interceptor Squadron were assigned to the Western Air Defense Force, ConAC, on 1 August, while the group headquarters and the 27th and 71st were attached to the EADF on 15 August. The wing was attached to the 27th Air Division, WADF, on 20 September. Finally, one month later, the 71st Fighter-Interceptor Squadron moved from Griffiss AFB to Pittsburgh International Airport, Pennsylvania.
As of 31 December 1950 Headquarters, 1st Fighter-Interceptor Wing and the 94th were stationed at George AFB, assigned to the WADF, and attached to the 27th Air Division. Headquarters, 1st Fighter-Interceptor Group, while still assigned to the wing, was stationed at Griffiss AFB with the 27th. The 71st was at Pittsburgh. The units on the East Coast were attached to the EADF.
Air Defense Command was reestablished as a major command on 1 January 1951, and the wing was assigned to ADC. In May, the 27th and the 71st were attached to the Connecticut Air National Guard 103d Fighter Interceptor Group, which provided administrative and logistical support and operational control, although the squadrons remained assigned to the 1st Fighter Group. Headquarters, 1st Fighter Group was relieved from attachment to the Eastern Air Defense Force and moved from Griffiss back to George without personnel or equipment. Meanwhile, at George AFB, the New Mexico Air National Guard 188th Fighter-Interceptor Squadron was attached to the 1st Fighter-Interceptor Wing, which provided administrative support and operational control.
All of these constant moves and reassignments as well as the fact that the wing headquarters stationed in California could provide only limited control and virtually no support to a group headquarters and squadrons deployed on the East Coast. While the policy of attaching units to higher headquarters established an ad hoc means of supplying the needed support, it was a cumbersome procedure that blurred organizational lines and did nothing for morale or unit cohesion above the squadron level. With the exception of the Headquarters and Headquarters Squadron, and the three fighter-interceptor squadrons, all 1st Fighter-Interceptor Wing organizations and the group headquarters were reduced to a strength of one officer and one enlisted man on 30 November 1951, at which time the wing moved from George Air Force Base, California, to Norton Air Force Base, California. The squadrons were reassigned to newly organized "defense wings": the 27th to the 4711th Air Defense Wing, Eastern Air Defense Force, the 71st to the 4708th Air Defense Wing, EADF, and the 94th to the 4705th Defense Wing, WADF. Headquarters, Air Defense Command inactivated the 1st Fighter-Interceptor Wing on 6 February 1952.
Selfridge AFB
The organizational instability of the early 1950s was rooted in the demands of the Korean War. With the end of the war in Korea the Air Defense Command found itself in a position to return to a more traditional command structure. The 1st Fighter-Interceptor Wing was redesignated the 1st Fighter Wing on 14 September 1956 and activated on 18 October 1956 at Selfridge AFB, Michigan. It was assigned to the Eastern Air Defense Force. After enduring a six-year period of frequent organizational changes, the wing began a period of stability. For approximately the next thirteen years it remained at Selfridge. Both the 71st and the 94th FIS traded their F-86s for F-102 Delta Dagger interceptors between 1958 and 1960. While the wing and its units operated from Selfridge AFB the 27th Fighter-Interceptor Squadron remained on the east coast. As of 31 December 1961 it was stationed at Dow AFB, Maine, and assigned to the Bangor Air Defense Sector, 26th Air Division. At that time the squadron was equipped with F-106 Delta Darts, and was not part of the 1st Fighter Wing.In October 1962 the wing responded to the Cuban Missile Crisis by deploying aircraft, support personnel, equipment and supplies to Patrick Air Force Base, Florida, and Volk Field, Wisconsin. From 19 October through 27 November wing aircraft flew 620 sorties and 1,274 hours, most from Patrick AFB, while maintaining a mission-ready rate of approximately eighty percent. Wing life reverted to more normal training routines at year's end, and the pattern continued through 1963 and 1964.
On 15 March 1963 two Soviet bombers overflew Alaska and Alaskan Air Command F-102s were unable to intercept them. The response to this intrusion was to deploy ten F-106s from the 325th Fighter Wing to Alaska in what was called Operation White Shoes. While the 325th wing upgraded its F-106s, the 1st Fighter Wing relieved it from March to June 1964. While deployed in Alaska, two of the wing's F-106s were damaged in the Good Friday earthquake.
Beginning in about 1965 the wing began to transfer pilots to other units in or en route to South Vietnam. While the wing itself did not participate in the Vietnam War, its units were soon manned by personnel who had completed tours in Southeast Asia, with the 1st serving as a transition unit for many pilots en route to or returning from Southeast Asia.
Organizational changes continued to whittle away at the wing's strength in 1966 and 1967. The wing was assigned to the 34th Air Division, First Air Force, on 1 April 1966. This organization changed again on 16 January 1967, when the 71st Fighter-Interceptor Squadron, which had won top prize in the F-106 category at the 1965 William Tell weapons competition at Tyndall AFB, Florida, was transferred to the 328th Fighter Wing, Tenth Air Force, at Richards-Gebaur Air Force Base, Missouri. This reorganization left the 1st Fighter Wing with only one fighter squadron, the 94th. However, the reduced wing stayed busy. From 24 July through 4 August 1967 Selfridge became the hub of federal activities mobilized during the 1967 Detroit riots. Elements of the 3d Brigade, 82d Airborne Division and the 2d Brigade, 101st Airborne Division, a total of some 12,000 combat and support personnel, eventually passed through the base. From 1500 on 24 July to 1500 the next day, the base received 4,700 troops and 1,008 tons of cargo. On 1 August the base handled 363 C-130 Hercules sorties, 6,036 troops, and 2,492 tons of cargo. By the time the tactical command post at Selfridge was closed at 1130 on 4 August, the base had processed 1,389 C-130 sorties, 12,058 troops, and 4,735 tons of cargo.
In September 1968 the detached 71st Fighter-Interceptor Squadron was relieved from assignment to the 328th Fighter Wing, and transferred to the 28th Air Division, Tenth Air Force, at Malmstrom AFB, Montana, where it became a self-contained unit operating on the SAC base. Between 20 May and 5 November 1969, the 94th FIS deployed to Osan Air Base, Korea, for exercise College Cadence.
It was to be the 1st Fighter Wing's last major air defense effort. On 1 December 1969 the 94th was transferred to Wurtsmith AFB, Michigan, pending the inactivation of the 1st Fighter Wing, which was assigned to the 23d Air Division on that date. On 31 December 1969 the wing, with no units under its control, transferred to Hamilton AFB, California, and was assigned to the 26th Air Division. The wing's personnel and equipment were transferred to the 4708th Air Base Group, 23d Air Division, at Duluth International Airport, Minnesota, on 1 January 1970.