465th Troop Carrier Wing History

The 465th Bomb Group was born of necessity as were many others during WWII and was equipped with the B-24 Liberator bombers. The 465th BG was sent to Italy and served its country by flying bombing missions all over Germany and supported the infamous bombing raids over Ploesti, Romania cutting the supply of petroleum products to their war machine. The 465th was deactivated after WWII like many others.

The 465th, as we knew it, was reactivated as a Troop Carrier Wing (Medium) on the 21st of August , 1953 at Mitchell AFB, NY replacing the 313th Troop Carrier Group. Our Wing was assigned the 18th Air Force on 25 August 1953 and was equipped with C-119s, the Flying Boxcar. It was under this command that the three Tac squadrons made the departure, from Donaldson AFB, SC to Toul Rosiere AFB, France starting in November 1953, flying in a stream until all had reached their destination. Headquarters units departed from Mitchell AFB in November 1953, lock, stock and barrel via surface transportation.

All units were in their particular assigned place by early January 1954. We then became assigned to the 12th Air Force and attached to the 322nd Air Division (Combat Cargo) as of 1 April 1954.

Shall we reminisce, a little bit, about those days?

Do you remember the national news coverage received through Walter Winchells Sunday evening radio news program that Moscow Molly predicted that the 465th Wing deployment would end in disaster and that we would lose over half of our aircraft due to inexperience, weather, unreliable aircraft and other reasons?

Do you remember why the flying squadrons were split up, the Group Headquarters and 780th to Toul Rosiere, France, supposedly our new base of operations, the 781st to Weisbaden and the 782nd to Neubiberg? The members of the unit sent to Toul will never forget the miserable winter and spring of 1954 with the mud, the tents and the lack of practically everything because the French just were not ready for us..

For the crew members, do you remember that our GCA unit was the very first one that was ever built and how it got us through some of the worst terminal weather ever experienced? Do you remember the places that we landed that were barely on the map? Why??? To satisfy a NATO commitment that required us to literally run an airline carrying every type of cargo known and to supply parts to the NATO Nations that were flying American built aircraft.

In further remembrance of the times of international crisis there was the closing of the Suez Canal, the Lebanon crisis, others of human suffering of the Hungarians in 1956, the avalanches in Italy, the constant presence of the Cold War and the Iron Curtain throughout our stay in Europe. The 465th was there and our mark lies all over that area. It was a very trying time and we were there.

The 465th Troop Carrier Wing was deactivated and replaced by the 317th Troop Carrier Wing on 8 July 1957 to carry on what we had started.

No, the 465th unit designation did not stop with the deactivation of the 465th Troop Carrier Wing. The 465th Strategic Bomb Wing reactivated as of 15 November 1962 equipped with B-52 and KC-135 aircraft at Robins AFB, Georgia until its deactivation on 25 July 1968. In this period of time it served the nation as a nuclear deterrent at Robins and furnished many crews on TDY to the Vietnamese conflict.

Each person has his, or her, own memories of the period with which the 465th TCW is concerned from the first announcement of the European deployment in the early fall of 1953 until we came home when our time was up in 1956 and 1957 leaving the job to be done by others that replaced us.

In this plaque and tree we leave our bit of USAF history as a permanent reminder that we were there and we did our job and did it well....