318th Special Operations Squadron
military unit
The 318th Special Operations Squadron flies the Pilatus U-28A Draco and is currently stationed at Cannon Air Force Base, New Mexico. The 318th is under the command of the Air Force Special Operations Command. The U-28A provides a manned fixed wing, on-demand/surge capability for Improved Tactical Airborne Intelligence, Surveillance, Reconnaissance and Targeting (ISR&T) in Support of Special Operations Forces.
History
The squadron was activated on 1 May 1944 as the 318th Troop Carrier Squadron (Commando) at Camp Mackall, North Carolina and serving under the 3d Air Commando Group. The unit participated in the Southwest Pacific Theater, flying the Waco CG-4 glider and C-47 Skytrain transport. The squadron was inactivated 25 March 1946.
Reactivated on 15 November 1971 at Pope Air Force Base, North Carolina, the unit was stood up as the 318th Special Operations Squadron, serving under 1st Special Operations Wing. The unit's mission was to provide unconventional warfare support in Vietnam with the Lockheed C-130 Hercules until inactivation on 1 June 1974.
The unit was most recently reactivated on 16 May 2008. The unit replaced a detachment that had operated the Pilatus PC-12 since 27 July 2007, first at Hurlburt Field, Florida as 1st Special Operations Group, Detachment 4, then after 30 December 2007 at Cannon Air Force Base, New Mexico as 27th Special Operations Group, Detachment 2.
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This entry incorporates text from “318th Special Operations 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.