USAF Air Division
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An Air Division (AD) was a United States Air Force echelon of command. In terms of the USAF command structure, an Air Division ranked below a Numbered Air Force and above an Operational Wing.
HQ USAF gradually inactivated all of the air divisions and by mid-1995, only one named division was still active.
The exception was the Strategic Air Command, where Air Divisions could also be the equivalent of Numbered Air Forces.
During the Vietnam War Air Divisions were commonly used as 'placeholder' organizations when the Operational Wing at an Air Force Base was deployed to Southeast Asia and commanded the remaining groups and squadrons at a single or multiple Air Force bases.
An Air Division also was structured to be a level of command above the Operational Wing, when two two or more Combat Wings were assigned to a single Air Force base.
Official policy dictated the use of Arabic numerals for numbered air and aerospace divisions. Examples: 2d Air Division, 7th Air Division, and 1st Strategic Aerospace Division.
Following the initiation of Major Command-controlled (MAJCON) four-digit Table of Distribution (T/D) organizations in 1948, the major commands were briefly authorized to organize air divisions, provided they secured USAF approval. Two four-digit air divisions (4310th Air Division and 7217th Air Division) were subsequently organized.
Besides numbered Air Divisions, a Named Air Division was an organization within a large support command that was assigned a major or important segment of that command's mission--e.g., the Electronic Systems Division handled a large part of the Air Force Systems Command's work-load in electronic systems.
Because they were usually technical or highly specialized in nature, named divisions generally had a large number of personnel. One named division of an operational command was the USAF Southern Air Division which absorbed resources of the United States Air Forces Southern Command in 1976, and was part of Tactical Air Command.
Air Divisions were gradually phased out of the Air Force command structure after the end of the Vietnam War, although some existed into the 1990's.
[edit] Sources
- The United States Air Force Dictionary, Air University, 1956
