457th Fighter Squadron
military unit
The 457th Fighter Squadron is a United States Air Force Reserve Command unit, assigned to the 301st Operations Group, 301st Fighter Wing at Naval Air Station Joint Reserve Base Fort Worth, Texas. The squadron flies the Lockheed Martin F-35A Lightning II. If mobilized, the Wing is gained by the Air Combat Command.
The squadron was first activated in 1944 as a long range fighter unit. It deployed to Iwo Jima in the spring of 1945 and engaged in combat until V-J Day, earning a Distinguished Unit Citation. It returned to the United States in December 1945 and was inactivated.
The squadron was again activated in 1953 as the 457th Strategic Fighter Squadron. In 1957, it was transferred from Strategic Air Command to Tactical Air Command as the 457th Fighter-Day Squadron. The squadron was inactivated in April 1959.
It began its current active period in July 1972, when the regular Air Force transferred three squadrons of Republic F-105 Thunderchiefs to the reserves.
Mission
The 457th Fighter Squadron is the only flying squadron attached to the 301st Fighter Wing.
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This entry incorporates text from “457th Fighter 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.