18th Airlift Squadron
military unit
The 18th Airlift Squadron is an inactive United States Air Force unit. Its last assignment was to the 305th Operations Group, Air Mobility Command, stationed at McGuire Air Force Base, New Jersey, where it was inactivated on 1 July 1995.
History
World War II
From activation in April until July 1942 the 18th ferried aircraft from the United States to the South Pacific and Southwest Pacific theaters of operations. Most flights originated from McClellan Field and proceeded via the Hawaiian Islands, Christmas Island, Canton Island, Fiji Islands, and New Caledonia, to Australia. From July 1942 until disbandment in October 1943, the 18th serviced outbound aircraft, briefed crews of these aircraft and controlled flights until they reached Hawaii.
Cold War
Reactivated on 18 July 1954, at McGuire Air Force Base, New Jersey, the squadron came under the Military Air Transport Service (MATS). It became operational in September, transporting passengers, cargo and mail in Douglas C-118 Liftmasters to South America, Europe, Africa, Asia and Australia, as well as within the US. It participated in operations, exercises, and maneuvers of the US armed services and transported important US and foreign officials. It also provided airlift support for the United Nations.
In December 1956 and January 1957 the unit airlifted over 9,700 Hungarian refugees from Rhein Main Air Base, West Germany to the United States. In 1961 the 18th began flying Boeing C-135 Stratolifters.
The public source identifies “18th Airlift Squadron” as military unit. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around 18th, Airlift and Squadron.
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Vocabulary and entity names are the principal evidence signals here, because they determine the precision of every later search. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 8, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q4557555. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1995, 1942, 1943 and 1954.
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This entry incorporates text from “18th Airlift Squadron” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.