Second Air Force
United States Air Force Air Education & Training Command numbered air force
The Second Air Force (2 AF; 2d Air Force in 1942) is a USAF numbered air force responsible for conducting basic military and technical training for Air Force enlisted members and non-flying officers. In World War II the CONUS unit defended the Northwestern United States and Upper Great Plains regions and during the Cold War, was Strategic Air Command unit with strategic bombers and missiles. Elements of Second Air Force engaged in combat operations during the Korean War; Vietnam War, as well as Operation Desert Storm.
History
The Northwest Air District of the GHQ Air Force was established on 19 October 1940; activated on 18 December 1940 at McChord Field, and then re-designated, amidst some internal confusion, as 2d Air Force on 26 March 1941. 5th Bombardment Wing was assigned to Second Air Force up until 5 September 1941.
2nd Air Force
On 11 December 1941, four days after the Pearl Harbor attack, 2d Air Force was placed under Western Defense Command. However, on 5 January 1942, it was returned to the Air Force Combat Command (a redesignation of GHQAF after creation of the United States Army Air Forces on 20 January 1941), and later placed directly under Headquarters AAF when Air Force Combat Command was dissolved in March 1942.
From December 1941, 2d Air Force organized air defense for the northwest Pacific Ocean coastline of the United States (1940–1941) and flew antisubmarine patrols along coastal areas until October 1942. It appears that immediately after 7 December 1941, only the 7th, 17th, 39th and 42d Bombardment Groups under II Bomber Command were available for this duty. In late January 1942, elements of the B-25 Mitchell-equipped 17th Bombardment Group at Pendleton Field, Oregon were reassigned to Columbia Army Air Base, South Carolina ostensibly to fly antisubmarine patrols off the southeast coast of the United States, but in actuality came to prepare for the Doolittle Raid against Japan.
Begin with the source’s own compact description: “Second Air Force” is united States Air Force Air Education & Training Command numbered air force. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Second, Force and United, not as a finished interpretation.
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Named sources, stable identifiers and responsible institutions provide the strongest route from overview to verifiable evidence. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 14, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q7443012. None of the 1 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1942, 1940 and 1941.
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This entry incorporates text from “Second Air Force” 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.