Looking at the 442nd's beginnings

  • Published
  • By Tech. Sgt. Mike Morrison
  • 442nd Fighter Wing historian
The 442nd Fighter Wing has a deep, rich history of commitment to national security and has had an active role in providing global power for America since 1943.

This history begins with the wing’s constitution as the 442nd Troop Carrier Group at Sedalia Army Airfield on May 25, 1943.

This airfield, located east of Warrensburg, Mo., in the hamlet of Knob Noster, would play a crucial role in the development of the 442nd Troop Carrier Group and eventually become Whiteman Air Force Base, the home of today’s 442nd Fighter Wing, as well as the Air Force’s premier bomber unit, the 509th Bomb Wing.

Activated on Sept. 1, 1943, the 442nd Troop Carrier Group, consisting of the 303rd, 304th, 305th and later 306th Troop Carrier Squadrons, began a brief but arduous training cycle in the operation and maintenance of C-47 Skytrain aircraft.

Less than 10 months later the group would rely on the training it received at Sedalia Army Airfield as it found itself poised on the threshold of helping transport thousands of Allied troops from England to Normandy, France, on June 6, 1944.

Four hours before the first Allied landing craft sighted the hostile shores of German-occupied France, the 442nd Troop Carrier Group dropped paratroopers from the Army’s 82nd Airborne over St. Mere-Eglise.

This action would continue throughout that fateful day until the group recorded more than 100 sorties, flown from the time the first of the group’s twin Pratt and Whitney R-1830 engines coughed to life until last chock was placed under the 64-foot long airframe of the last C-47 to land.

The dawn of June 7, 1944, found the 442nd Troop Carrier Group taking to the air over France once again. The group airlifted supplies to the soldiers it delivered into the jaws of battle the day before.

For its actions during the Normandy invasion of June 6 and 7, 1944, the 442nd Troop Carrier Group was awarded the Distinguished Unit Citation (later the Presidential Unit Citation). The dark blue streamer with the word Normandy embroidered in silver would become the first of many battle streamers the group would reap from its harvest of combat experiences in reclaiming the European continent in the name of freedom.