No. 904 Expeditionary Air Wing (United Kingdom)
904 Expeditionary Air Wing is a wing of the Royal Air Force. It is currently stationed at Kandahar Airfield in Afghanistan controlling RAF operations at the air base there. It was activated on 1 April 2006 as part of a modernisation package to make the RAF more deployable on an expeditionary basis. It currently reports to No. 83 Expeditionary Air Group.
History
In the Second World War, the wing existed for a brief period as 904 Tactical Wing. It was first formed on 1 October 1944 as a tactical wing and its four squadrons were equipped with Republic P-47 Thunderbolts and operated in tactical support of the Fourteenth Army in the liberation of Burma. In early 1945 the wing was withdrawn from Burma to prepare for supporting the invasion of Malaya scheduled for later in the year. However the end of the war intervened and the wing was re-roled. It was deployed to Java in the Netherlands East Indies in the aftermath of the war, commanded by David Lee.[1] Two of its Thunderbolt squadrons were replaced by a Douglas Dakota squadron and aircraft of the wing took part in the repatriation of Allied prisoners of the war and internees. Following completion of that task the wing was disbanded on 30 November 1946.
The wing is currently based at Kandahar Airfield and it used to control a Panavia Tornado GR4[2] and Lockheed Martin C-130J Super Hercules detachments.[3][4]
Current use
The wing is currently based at Kandahar Airfield and has:[5]
- British Aerospace 146 detachment.[6]
- General Atomics MQ-9 Reaper detachment.[5]
References
- ↑ Air Chief Marshal Sir David Lee, Wings in the Sun, author's biography, and Obituary: Air Chief Marshal Sir David Lee Daily Telegraph, 19 February 2004.
- ↑ "RAF Tornados leave Afghanistan for the last time". MoD. Retrieved 12 November 2014.
- ↑ "904 EAW Hercules Detachment". Royal Air Force (RAF). Retrieved 4 December 2013.
- ↑ "RAF Hercules Detachment Leaves Afghanistan". RAF. Retrieved 14 November 2014.
- ↑ 5.0 5.1 "904 Expeditionary Air Wing". RAF. Retrieved 4 December 2013.
- ↑ "83 EAG Ops Update 22 Feb 2014". RAF. Retrieved 6 March 2014.