The squadron was activated in April 1943 as the 636th Bombardment Squadron at Key Field, Mississippi, as one of the original squadrons of the 408th Bombardment Group.[1][2] In August, along with other Army Air Forces (AAF) single engine dive bomber units, it became a fighter-bomber unit, and was redesignated as the 518th Fighter-Bomber Squadron.[1] The squadron did not receive aircraft to begin training until October, after it had moved to Drew Field, Florida.[2] It served as an operational training unit with various aircraft, providing cadres to "satellite groups" and as a replacement training unit, training individual pilots.[1][3]
However, the AAF was finding that standard military units, based on relatively inflexible tables of organization, were not proving well adapted to the training mission. Accordingly, it adopted a more functional system in which each AAF base was organized into a separate numbered unit.[4] In this reorganization the squadron was disbanded in 1944 as the AAF converted to the AAF Base Unit system.[1] It was replaced, along with other units at Woodward Army Air Field, by the 267th AAF Base Unit (Combat Crew Training Station, Fighter) in a reorganization of the AAF in which all units not programmed for deployment overseas were replaced by AAF Base Units to free up manpower for assignment overseas.[5]
^Approved 18 January 1957. Description: Over and through a medium blue disc, a caricatured light golden brown gamecock, with black tail feathers, red comb and wattles, white eyeball and talons, and black outline, standing on a large black guided missile, highlights white and gray, and holding a black radar antenna, highlights white and gray, braced under his left wing, all in front of a large white cloud formation.
Buss, Lydus H.(ed), Sturm, Thomas A., Volan, Denys, and McMullen, Richard F., History of Continental Air Defense Command and Air Defense Command July to December 1955, Directorate of Historical Services, Air Defense Command, Ent AFB, CO, (1956)
Craven, Wesley F.; Cate, James L., eds. (1955). The Army Air Forces in World War II: Men & Planes. Vol. VI. Chicago, Illinois: University of Chicago Press. LCCN48003657. OCLC704158.
Goss, William A. (1955). "The Organization and its Responsibilities, Chapter 2 The AAF". In Craven, Wesley F.; Cate, James L. (eds.). The Army Air Forces in World War II: Men & Planes(PDF). Vol. VI. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press. LCCN48003657. OCLC704158. Retrieved 17 December 2016.
