| 62d Bombardment Squadron | |
|---|---|
Emblem of the 62d Bombardment Squadron |
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| Active | 1941-1944; 1944-1945; 1962-1 Sep 1991 |
| Country | United States |
| Branch | United States Air Force |
| Type | Bombardment |
The 62d Bombardment Squadron is an inactive United States Air Force unit. It was last assigned to the 2d Bombardment Wing. It was inactivated at Barksdale Air Force Base, Louisiana on 1 September 1991.
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Established in 1941 as a B-17 Flying Fortress heavy bomber group, it was assigned to the GHQAF Northwest Air District in Washington State in July 1941. It flew antisubmarine patrols over the Pacific Northwest coastline after the Pearl Harbor attack. Its aircraft and crews were sent to Australia in early 1942, they were assigned to Fifth Air Force units being formed there after the withdrawal of B-17s from Clark Field in January 1942 after operations from Clark became untenable during the 1942 Battle of the Philippines.
The squadron reformed at Davis-Monthan Field, Arizona in February 1942 as a B-24 Liberator heavy bomber Operational Training Unit under the Second Air Force. It trained new units and replacement crews until heavy bomber training ended in April 1944.
Reformed again as a B-29 Superfortress very heavy bomber squadron in late 1944, the unit trained under the Second Air Force; it deployed to XXI Bomber Command on Guam. It carried out very long range strategic bombardment raids on the Japanese Home Islands from March 1945 until their capitulation in August 1945. Most squadron personnel demobilized on Guam and returned to the United States along with aircraft being sent to storage sites in the southwestern US. It was inactivated as a paper unit, in December 1945.
It was reactivated as a Strategic Air Command B-52G Stratofortress intercontinental strategic bombardment squadron in 1963 as part of a SAC (Strategic Air Command) program to provide provisional units with a combat lineage. The squadron performed operational testing of new equipment at Eglin AFB, between 1963 and 1965; it was reassigned to Barksdale AFB in 1965 and stood nuclear alert duties. It deployed to the western Pacific and engaged in combat operations over Indochina as part of Operation Arc Light (1966–1972). The unit returned to training status and stood nuclear alert after the end of the Vietnam War. It was inactivated in 1991 as part of the USAF drawdown after the end of the Cold War and retirement of the B-52G.
This article incorporates public domain material from websites or documents of the Air Force Historical Research Agency.