401st Air Expeditionary Group
United States Air Force unit
The 401st Air Expeditionary Group is a provisional United States Air Force unit assigned to United States Air Forces in Europe to be activated or inactivated at any time as needed. It is stationed at Ramstein Air Base, Germany.
The group was first activated as the 401st Bombardment Group during World War II. The 401st entered combat with VIII Bomber Command, flying Boeing B-17 Flying Fortresses from RAF Deenethorpe. The group earned two Distinguished Unit Citations for missions over Leipzig on 11 January and 20 February 1944. The 401st Bomb Group had the second best rating in bombing accuracy for Eighth Air Force.
The group was activated briefly as an Air Force Reserve unit in 1947, but apparently was minimally manned. It was called to active duty in 1951 for the Korean War, but its personnel were used as fillers for other units and the group was soon inactivated.
The group was again active in the 1950s as the 401st Fighter-Bomber Group at England AFB, Louisiana. It was inactivated in 1957 when Tactical Air Command (TAC) replaced its groups reporting directly to TAC numbered air forces with like numbered wings and its squadrons were transferred to the 401st Fighter-Bomber Wing.
The 401st Fighter-Bomber Wing flew North American F-100 Super Sabres at England for the next nine years.
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This entry incorporates text from “401st Air Expeditionary Group” 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.