415th Flight Test Flight

The squadron was first activated as the 25th Reconnaissance Squadron' at MacDill Field, Florida and attached to the 98th Bombardment Group. The 24th soon moved to Barksdale Field, Louisiana, where it began to train as a Consolidated B-24 Liberator squadron under Third Air Force. In April, it was converted to a heavy bomber unit and redesignated the 415th Bombardment Squadron and was assigned, rather than attached to the 98th Bombardment Group.[1][4]

The squadron's training was short and it deployed to Egypt in July 1942[1] over the South Atlantic Ferrying Route transiting from Morrison Field, Florida, though the Caribbean Sea to Brazil. It made the Atlantic crossing from Brazil to Liberia, then transited east across central Africa to Sudan. The air echelon of the group reformed with the ground echelon which traveled by the SS Pasteur around the Cape of Good Hope, joining with the air echelon of the squadron and the 345th Bombardment Squadron at RAF Ramat David, in Palestine.[5]

415th Bomb Squadron B-24D[note 2]

Upon arrival in the Near East, the squadron became part of United States Army Middle East Air Force, which was replaced by Ninth Air Force in November. It entered combat in August, attacking shipping and harbor installations to cut Axis supply lines to North Africa. It also bombed airfields and rail transit lines in Sicily and mainland Italy. The squadron moved forward with Ninth Air Force to airfields in Egypt; Libya and Tunisia supporting the British Eighth Army in the Western Desert Campaign. Its support of this campaign earned the squadron the Distinguished Unit Citation.[1]

On 1 August 1943, the squadron participated in Operation Tidal Wave, the low-level raid on oil refineries near Ploiești, Romania. Alerted to the vulnerability of the Ploiești refineries by a June 1942 raid by the HALPRO project, the area around Ploiești had become one of the most heavily defended targets in Europe.[6] The squadron pressed its attack on the Asta Romana Refinery through smoke and fire from bombing by another group's earlier attack and heavy flak defenses. The squadron's actions in this engagement earned it a second Distinguished Unit Citation.[1]

When the forces driving East from Egypt and Libya met up with those moving westward from Algeria and Morocco in Tunisia in September 1943, Ninth Air Force was transferred to England to become the tactical air force for the invasion of the European Continent.[7] The squadron, along with all Army Air Forces units in North Africa became part of Twelfth Air Force. In November 1943, the squadron moved to Brindisi Airport, Italy, where it became part of Fifteenth Air Force, which assumed control of strategic operations in the Mediterranean Theater of Operations, while Twelfth became a tactical air force.[4][8]

The squadron continued strategic bombardment raids on targets in Occupied France, southern Germany, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Austria and targets in the Balkans. These included industrial sites, airfields, harbors and lines of communication. Although focusing on strategic bombing, the squadron was sometimes diverted to tactical operations, supporting Operation Shingle, the landings at Anzio and the Battle of Monte Cassino. In the summer of 1944, the squadron supported Operation Dragoon, the invasion of southern France.[4][9] The unit also assisted the Soviet advance into the Balkans,[4] and supported Yugoslav Partisans and guerillas in neighboring countries.

The squadron returned to the United States in May 1945. Upon arrival it was redesignated as a very heavy Boeing B-29 Superfortress squadron and began training for deployment to the Pacific to conduct strategic bombardment raids on Japan. However, very heavy bomber groups were organized with three squadrons, rather than the four of the 98th Group, so in July 1945, the squadron was inactivated and its personnel and equipment were transferred to the other squadrons of the 98th Group.[1][10]

Dedication of first Boeing B-47 at Lincoln AFB

From 1958, the Boeing B-47 Stratojet wings of Strategic Air Command (SAC) began to assume an alert posture at their home bases, reducing the amount of time spent on alert at overseas bases. The SAC alert cycle divided itself into four parts: planning, flying, alert and rest to meet General Thomas S. Power's initial goal of maintaining one third of SAC’s planes on fifteen minute ground alert, fully fueled and ready for combat to reduce vulnerability to a Soviet missile strike.[11] To implement this new system B-47 wings reorganized from three to four squadrons.[11][12] The 415th was activated at Lincoln Air Force Base as the fourth squadron of the 98th Bombardment Wing.[1] The alert commitment was increased to half the wing's aircraft in 1962 and the four squadron pattern no longer met the alert cycle commitment, so the squadron was inactivated on 1 January 1962.[1]

The second predecessor of the flight was activated in March 1989 by Air Force Systems Command at Edwards Air Force Base, California, as the 6515th Test Squadron and assigned to the 6510th Test Wing. The squadron assumed the McDonnell Douglas F-15 Eagle testing mission, evaluating modifications prior to them being implemented for operational aircraft. In 1992, as the Air Force eliminated MAJCON (four-digit) units, the 6515th was consolidated with the 415th as the 415th Test Squadron The squadron was inactivated in 1994[1] and its testing mission was assumed by the 419th Flight Test Squadron.

The squadron was reactivated as the 415th Flight Test Flight in 2001 as a Northrop T-38 Talon functional check flight organization at Randolph Air Force Base.[1] The squadron participates in a program designed to extend the service life of the Air Force's fleet of T-38C Talon aircraft through the year 2020. In addition to modifying the propulsion system, the program also involves an upgrade to the plane's avionics. This upgrade is designed to improve the training capabilities of the T-38 and provide one configuration for all training roles. Once completed, the program will make it easier for pilot trainees to transition from the T-38 to a front-line fighter or bomber aircraft.[13]

Air Education and Training Command is the lead command responsible for sustainment and modernization of T-38s in the Air Force inventory. The T-38 System Program Office at the Ogden Air Logistics Center at Hill Air Force Base, Utah, provides primary field support for the aircraft and has operational control of the 415th's mission, while Air Force Reserve Command maintains administrative control of the unit.[13]

• 98th Bombardment Group, 3 February 1942 – 3 July 1945
• 98th Bombardment Wing, 1 September 1958 – 1 January 1962
• 6510th Test Wing (later 412th Test Wing), 10 March 1989
• 412th Operations Group, 1 October 1993 – 1 October 1994
• 622d Flight Test Group, 1 October 2001
• 413th Flight Test Group, 1 October 2003 – present[1]

• Consolidated B-24 Liberator, 1942–1945
• Boeing B-47 Stratojet, 1958–1961
• McDonnell Douglas F-15 Eagle, 1989–1994[1]
• Northrop T-38 Talon, 2001–present[3]

 This article incorporates public domain material from the Air Force Historical Research Agency website http://www.afhra.af.mil/.

• Deaile, Melvin G. (2007). The SAC Mentality: The Origins of Organizational Culture in Strategic Air Command 1946–1962. Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina. Retrieved 14 February 2015.
• Dorr, Robert F. (2000). B-24 Liberator Units of the Fifteenth Air Force. Combat Aircraft. 21. Botley, UK: Osprey Publishing. ISBN 1-84176-081-1.
• Dorr, Robert F. (2002). B-29 Superfortress Units in World War Two. Combat Aircraft. 33. Botley, UK: Osprey Publishing. ISBN 1-84176-285-7.
• Maurer, Maurer, ed. (1983) [1961]. Air Force Combat Units of World War II (PDF) (reprint ed.). Washington, DC: Office of Air Force History. ISBN 0-912799-02-1. LCCN 61060979.
• Maurer, Maurer, ed. (1982) [1969]. Combat Squadrons of the Air Force, World War II (PDF) (reprint ed.). Washington, DC: Office of Air Force History. ISBN 0-405-12194-6. LCCN 70605402. OCLC 72556.
• Ravenstein, Charles A. (1984). Air Force Combat Wings, Lineage & Honors Histories 1947–1977. Washington, DC: Office of Air Force History. ISBN 0-912799-12-9. Retrieved 17 December 2016.
• Rogers, Edith (June 1945). "The AAF in the Middle East: A Study of the Origins of the Ninth Air Force, USAF Historical Study No. 108" (PDF). Assistant Chief of Air Staff Intelligence, Historical Division. Retrieved 25 May 2017.
• Schake, Col Kurt W. (1998). Strategic Frontier: American Bomber Bases Overseas, 1950–1960 (PDF). Trondheim, Norway: Norwegian University of Science and Technology. ISBN 978-8277650241. Retrieved 27 July 2015.
• Schultz, Duane (2008). Into the Fire: Ploesti, the Most Fateful Battle of World War II. Yardley, PA: Westholme Publishing. ISBN 978-1594160776.