1st Air Commando Group
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The United States 1st Air Commando Group operated in the South-East Asian Theatre of World War II as part of the U.S. Tenth Air Force in support of the British Fourteenth Army in the Burma Campaign.
After the Quebec Conference in August 1943, the 5318th Air Unit was redesignated "Provisional Composite No. 1 Air Commandos" and tasked with supporting the Chindits. Eventually they were designated the 1st Air Commando Group. The group consisted primarily of C-47 air transports but it also contained gliders, fighter, fighter bomber, bomber and liaison aircraft.
Later in the campaign under the designation of the 1st Air Commando Force, they supported other units of the British Fourteenth Army during their victorious drive to Rangoon.
After a glider training accident, the Commander of the Chindits General Orde Wingate sent the 1st Air Commando a message:
- "Please be assured that we will go with your boys, any place, any time, any where."
It was adopted by the 1st Air Commando as their motto, and in an abbreviated form this is still used as the motto of the USAF Special Operations Command.
