III Tactical Air Command
military unit
The III Tactical Air Command was a United States Army Air Forces formation. Its last assignment was with Third Air Force stationed at Barksdale Field, Louisiana. It was disbanded on 24 October 1945. The command was established in 1941 as the 3rd Air Support Command. It was responsible for training tactical units and aircrews for the Army Air Forces, except for the period from August 1943 through March 1944, when it specialized in training reconnaissance units.
History
Background
General Headquarters Air Force (GHQ AF) reorganized its four regional air districts as Numbered Air Forces in the spring of 1941. By the fall of that year, each of these had organized as a support command and three combat commands. In the summer of 1941 GHQ AF decided to establish commands to direct its air support mission in each numbered air force, plus one additional command reporting directly to GHQ AF. 3rd Air Force organized 3rd Air Support Command. However, by early 1942, most of the command's trained personnel had moved overseas, leading GHQ AF to believe it had little more than the "remnants" of the command remaining. As a result, it was decided to disband the command on 16 March 1942.
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This entry incorporates text from “III Tactical Air Command” 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.