80th Flying Training Wing

The 80th Pursuit Group (Interceptor) was constituted on 13 January 1942 and activated on February 1942. It was redesignated as the 80th Fighter Group in May 1942. During World War II, the group was the first USAAF unit to be stationed in Burma after the Allied retreat in 1942. During its two years in combat, this group, which called itself the Burma Banshees, kept the supply lines open to China while clearing the way for Allied forces and US Army units such as Merrill's Marauders to sweep Japanese forces from northern Burma.

The 80th trained for combat and served as part of the defense force for the northeastern United States from, 1942–1943. It's flying squadrons were the 88th, 89th, and 90th Pursuit (later Fighter) Squadrons. It first trained with the P-47 Thunderbolt and later in the Curtis P-40.

The 80th sailed for India, via Brazil, the Cape of Good Hope, and Ceylon, in May 1943, commencing combat operations in the China-Burma-India theater in September 1943. The group supported Allied ground forces during the battle for northern Burma and the push southward to Rangoon, bombing and strafing troop concentrations, supply dumps, lines of communication, artillery positions, and other objectives.

The 80th was assigned the defense of the Indian terminus of the Hump route, which it carried out by striking Japanese airfields and patrolling Allied air bases to safeguard them from attack. The 80th received a Distinguished Unit Citation for intercepting a formation of Japanese aircraft, preventing the destruction of a large oil refinery in Assam, India, on 27 March 1944. Though its primary mission in Burma was the protection of the "Hump" cargo route, the group also played an important role in reopening the Ledo/Burma Road. Using modified, so-called B-40 fighter bombers (the Curtiss P-40 fitted with a 1,000-pound bomb), the 80th FG attacked Japanese-held bridges, sometimes demolishing their target with a single bomb. By the end of the war, the group had destroyed more than 200 bridges and killed scores of bridge repair crews.[2] Air-to-air and air-to-ground sweeps by the group's pilots claimed 80 enemy planes destroyed in the air or on the ground.

The 80th Fighter Group was withdrawn from combat in May 1945 and inactivated in November.

The 3630th Flying Training Wing was activated at Sheppard Air Force Base on 10 December 1965 to provide pilot training for the German Air Force. It was discontinued and replaced by the 80th Flying Training Wing' in 1972 as part of an Air Training Command program to replace its four-digit Major Command controlled wings with wings with that inherited a combat lineage. Since its reactivation, the wing has provided undergraduate pilot training, initially for USAF, German Air Force, and Republic of Vietnam Air Force students.

Although Republic of Vietnam Air Force pilot training ceased in September 1974, students from other nations continued to train under the security assistance program through April 1980. It also provided USAF rotary-wing pilots' conversion training to fixed-wing aircraft from June 1977 – November 1981. The wing has conducted pilot training and pilot instructor training under the Euro-NATO Joint Pilot Training Program, since October 1981, with participating nations contributing staff and financial support. In January 1994, the 80th began training Euro-NATO pilots in fighter fundamentals, using AT-38 aircraft.

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

• 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.
• 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.