403rd Wing


The 403rd Wing is a unit of the United States Air Force assigned to the Air Force Reserve Command. It is located at Keesler Air Force Base, Mississippi and employs a military manning authorization of more than 1,400 reservists, including some 250 full-time air reserve technicians. The 403rd Wing is a subordinate unit of the 22nd Air Force at Dobbins Air Reserve Base.

Mission

The 403rd Wing provides command and staff supervision to assigned squadrons and flights that support tactical airlift missions. These missions include airlift of personnel, equipment and supplies. Additionally, the wing is the only unit in the Department of Defense tasked to organize, equip, train and perform all hurricane weather reconnaissance in support of the Department of Commerce.
The 403rd is gained upon mobilization by the Air Mobility Command and will execute missions in support of the theater commander, such as resupply, employment operations within the combat zone or forward area, and when required, aeromedical, refugee evacuation and augmentation of other airlift forces.
As of 2021 the 403rd's mission is to Develop Exceptional Airmen Ready to Respond to Every Challenge, Every Time.
The Wing's vision is Wing of Choice...Airmen First Mission Always.

Units

The 403rd Wing has three subordinate groups, 12 squadrons, and three flights.

Initial activation

Established on 7 December 1942 and activated on 12 December 1942, the 403rd Troop Carrier Group mobilized in Bowman Field, Kentucky, as a response to U.S. involvement in World War II. The unit quickly moved to Alliance, Nebraska, for further training. Airmen of the 403rd Troop Carrier Group called themselves “The Sandmen,” after their beloved commander Colonel Harry Sands Jr., whom they called “The Old Man,” “The Colonel,” and “Colonel Bud.” They all agreed that Colonel Sands was a “great leader” and a “Good Joe,” and they followed his leadership into battle after only a few months of training in the heartland.
The 403rd Troop Carrier Group first entered the Pacific Theater of Operations on 27 July 1943, and was assigned to the XIII Air Force Service Command. The group became the first U.S. troop carrier unit to enter the South Pacific, the first and only troop carrier unit to enter both the South and Southwest Pacific Areas, and Airmen conducted the first parachute drop and first air evacuation in the South Pacific. Airmen at first were sent to Tontouta, New Caledonia, where the group provided immediate support of cargo and passengers to Espiritu Santo in the New Hebrides Islands and Guadalcanal. 403rd Airmen also provided paratrooper drop support of U.S. and Australian paratroopers during the Lae Campaign in New Guinea in September 1943. 403rd Airmen were also involved in the February 1944 invasion of the Philippines to liberate the islands from Japanese control. Flying C-47s, Airmen brought in cargo and high priority personnel into the archipelago and evacuated wounded personnel on their way back. Airmen continued to work throughout 1944 to move troops, supplies, and other cargo to advance bases in the Pacific. Over the course of two years of flying during the war, the Group flew 247,660 hours and completed 201,422 missions. Airmen flew approximately 43, 211, 326 mission miles, and Airmen earned 546 Distinguished Flying Cross Medals, 1 Soldier’s Medal, and 1 Legion of Merit.
After the war, the 403rd was inactivated on 15 October 1946 and placed on an interim status for more than two years. The unit was redesignated as the 403rd Troop Carrier Group Medium on 10 May 1949 while the 403rd Troop Carrier Wing was activated on 27 June 1949 at Portland Airport in Portland, Oregon. The activation marked a major change in the unit’s organization, as most Airmen in the 403rd came from the 305th Bombardment Group and not the wartime 403rd Troop Carrier Group. Prior to the activation, the 305th Bombardment Group had been activated in July 1947 under command of Colonel Chester McCarty, but due to inadequate facilities at the Portland Airport, the Group “did very little work.”
The wing was first activated at Portland Airport in June 1949 as the 403rd Troop Carrier Wing, a Curtiss C-46 Commando unit when Continental Air Command reorganized its reserve units under the wing base organization system. At Portland, the wing trained under the supervision of the 2343d Air Force Reserve Flying Training Center. The wing was manned at 25% of normal strength but its 403rd Troop Carrier Group was authorized four squadrons rather than the three of active duty units.
The wing was mobilized on 1 April 1951 for duty during the Korean War. The 403rd was one of six reserve troop carrier wings mobilized for service with Tactical Air Command. The reserve wings were assigned to Eighteenth Air Force, which was initially composed entirely of reserve troop carrier units., The wing trained at home in its C-46s and participated in Eighteenth Air Force's training exercises until March 1952, when TAC directed it to transfer its C-46s and prepare to move its personnel overseas. The wing departed the United States on 29 March and by 14 April, it was in place at Ashiya Air Base, Japan.
Upon arrival at Ashiya, the 314th Troop Carrier Group, flying Fairchild C-119 Flying Boxcars, and the 21st Troop Carrier Squadron, flying Douglas C-47 Skytrains and Douglas C-54 Skymasters were attached to the wing for operations, bringing wing strength to nine squadrons. The wing's 403rd Troop Carrier Group spent its first month at Ashiya training on its new C-119s.
This action finally solved the Far East Air Force's year-old problem of providing the Army with sufficient lift to handle the 187th Regimental Combat Team intact. The new arrangement was soon put to the test. In May 1952, the 403rd airlifted the 187th to Pusan in an expedited movement incident to quelling a communist prisoner of war riot at Koje Do Island. It engaged in a number of airborne training missions with the 187th. In October 1952 the wing participated in an airborne feint which was part of a United Nations Command amphibious demonstration off eastern Korea
While on active service, the wing airdropped more than 10,000 personnel, airlifted over 18,000 tons and evacuated almost 14,000 patients. After twenty-one months of active service, the 403rd Troop Carrier Wing was inactivated on 1 January 1953 and its mission, personnel and equipment were transferred to the 483d Troop Carrier Wing, which was simultaneously activated.

Reactivation in the reserve

The wing was activated the same day back in Portland, where it replaced the 454th Troop Carrier Wing, which had been activated in the summer of 1952 when the reserves began receiving aircraft again following its mobilization for the Korean War. The 403rd performed routine airlift training the reserve. During that time, the wing also supported Army airdrop training, ferried aircraft to various parts of the country and the world, took part in training exercises, and performed humanitarian missions as needed.
During the first half of 1955, the Air Force began detaching Air Force Reserve squadrons from their parent wing locations to separate sites. The concept offered several advantages: communities were more likely to accept the smaller squadrons than the large wings and the location of separate squadrons in smaller population centers would facilitate recruiting and manning. As it finally evolved in the spring of 1955, Continental Air Command 's plan called for placing Air Force reserve units at fifty-nine installations located throughout the United States. In one of the first three moves to implement this program, ConAC detached the 65th Troop Carrier Squadron from Portland to Paine Air Force Base, Washington. In time, the detached squadron program proved successful in attracting additional participants

Move to Selfridge Air Force Base

The Joint Chiefs of Staff were pressuring the Air Force to provide more wartime airlift. At the same time, about 150 C-119s became available from the active force. Consequently, in November 1956 the Air Force directed ConAC to convert three fighter bomber wings to the troop carrier mission by September 1957. In addition, within the Air Staff was a recommendation that the reserve fighter mission given to the Air National Guard and replaced by the troop carrier mission. Cuts in the budget in 1957 also led to a reduction in the number of reserve wings from 24 to 15 and of squadrons from 55 to 45. The reduction impacted the 403rd Wing, which was replaced at Portland by a single squadron, the 304th Air Rescue Squadron. The wing was not inactivated, however. Instead, it moved as a paper unit to Selfridge Air Force Base, Michigan, where it replaced one of the inactivating reserve fighter units, the 439th Fighter-Bomber Wing. The 63d Troop Carrier Squadron was located at Selfridge with wing headquarters, but the 64th Troop Carrier Squadron was at Niagara Falls Municipal Airport, where it absorbed the resources of the 445th Troop Carrier Wing, while the 65th replaced the 713th Fighter-Bomber Squadron at Davis Field, Oklahoma. The 64th Squadron's stay in New York was short, for in March 1958 it moved to O'Hare International Airport, Illinois, where it replaced the 97th Troop Carrier Squadron, placing it closer to wing headquarters.
After the success of reserve wings in providing airlift in Operation Sixteen Ton, the wing began to use inactive duty training periods for Operation Swift Lift, transporting high priority cargo for the air force and Operation Ready Swap, transporting aircraft engines, between Air Materiel Command's depots.
The wing trained with the 2242d Air Reserve Flying Center, but in April 1958, the center was inactivated and some of its personnel were absorbed by the wing. In place of active duty support for reserve units, ConAC adopted the Air Reserve Technician Program, in which a cadre of the unit consisted of full-time personnel who were simultaneously civilian employees of the Air Force and held rank as members of the reserves. One year later, ConAC organized its wings under the Dual Deputate organization. The 403rd Troop Carrier Group was inactivated and all flying squadrons were directly assigned to the wing.