438th Air Expeditionary Wing
a unit of the United States Air Force
The 438th Air Expeditionary Wing was a United States Air Force unit operating in Afghanistan and assigned to United States Air Forces Central. The wing trained Afghan Air Force members, including pilots. In the Cold War it was active as an airlift wing.
History
For related history, see 438th Air Expeditionary Group
Air Force Reserve
In 1949 Continental Air Command reorganized its reserve units under the wing base organization, which placed support units under the same headquarters as the combat group they supported. As part of this reorganization, the 438th Troop Carrier Wing was activated at Offutt Air Force Base, Nebraska. The wing absorbed the resources of the 381st Bombardment Group, which was simultaneously inactivated at Offutt. Although the wing's manning, along with that of its component squadrons, was limited to 25% of active duty organization authorizations, it was assigned four squadrons, rather than three. The wing trained under the 2473d Air Force Reserve Training Center for troop carrier operations with the C-46, but also flew the North American T-6 Texan trainer.
All combat units of the Air Force Reserve were ordered to active service for the Korean War. The 438th was called up in the second wave of mobilizations on 10 March 1951.
The public source identifies “438th Air Expeditionary Wing” as a unit of the United States Air Force. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around 438th, Expeditionary and Wing.
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The citation trail is more important than the brevity of the summary: it shows where individual claims can be examined in context. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 11, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q4637884. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 1 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1949 and 1951.
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This entry incorporates text from “438th Air Expeditionary Wing” 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.