The 9th Air Refueling Squadron was activated in 1951, and has operated the Boeing KB-29 Superfortress, Boeing KC-97, and Boeing KC-135 Stratotanker, prior to its current air refueling equipment. It has been deployed worldwide, assisting in wartime, humanitarian, and peacekeeping efforts in often remote areas.
Mission
The 9th Air Refueling Squadron mobilizes and deploys twelve KC-10 aircraft and over 140 personnel and equipment to worldwide forward operating locations. It generates 24-hour-a-day strategic airlift and air refueling sorties supporting U.S. and allied forces during contingency operations. It trains aircrews to support and sustain Joint Chiefs of Staff directed missions. The 9th executes an 8,000+ flying hour program and a $580,000 budget.[3]
The squadron's aircrews remained behind to receive additional training at Peterson Field.[5] After The squadron's Lightnings went through modifications at Dallas, Texas, they were delivered to Newark Army Air Base, New Jersey for shipment to India. The pilots then boarded transport planes for flight to India.[6]
Combat in China, Burma and India
The squadron did not arrive in India until late July, by which time it had been renamed the 9th Photographic Reconnaissance Squadron.[1] Despite the haste with which it had been sent to Karachi, India and its long ocean voyage, it was an even longer voyage for its F-4 Lightnings, which only began to arrive in September.[1][7] In the interim, the squadron's mechanics helped assemble Republic P-43 Lancer and Vultee P-66 Vanguard fighters for delivery to the Nationalist Chinese Air Force. However, this early in the war, techniques for sea transport of aircraft had not been developed and many of the squadron's aircraft had been damaged in preparing them for shipment. In particular, fuel tanks had not been fully drained causing severe deterioration of the self-sealing features, which resulted in the need for extensive work on the planes by the air depot at Agra.[6]
In October, the squadron sent a detachment to Kunming Airport, China to build and operate a photographic processing laboratory for the China Air Task Force. The detachment was augmented by four Lightnings in November.[1][5] The same month, the squadron moved to Chakulia Airfield, India, which was already the home of the 7th Bombardment Group, with the idea that the squadron could work with the 7th Group to provide prestrike and poststrike reconnaissance.[6] On 12 December, nearly five months after its official arrival in theater, the squadron flew its first combat reconnaissance mission over Burma.[5][d] Flights of squadron reconnaissance aircraft operated over a wide area of Burma, Thailand, and China until VJ Day, obtaining aerial photos and reconnaissance of enemy positions and targets for heavy bomber attacks in support of British and American forces.[1]
Lightning Lockheed F-5B as flown by the squadron
In March 1943, a single Lightning and supporting personnel and equipment were detached to Dinjan Airfield, India.[5] Combat attrition had seriously reduced the availability of the squadron's F-4s by this time, and two months later, the squadron began to fly a second type of plane, the North American B-25 Mitchell. The first Mitchell, formerly flown by the 7th Bombardment Group, arrived on 27 May. After modifying the B-25s to carry cameras the squadron flew its first combat mission with the B-25 on 10 June. Meanwhile, the squadron had begun receiving the newer F-5 reconnaissance version of the Lightning,[e] and the first F-5 mission was flown later the same month. In July, the squadron transferred the personnel and equipment at its detachment at Kunming to the 21st Photographic Squadron, which had just arrived in the theater.[1][5][6]
Tenth Air Force formed the provisional 5306th Photographic and Reconnaissance Group in October 1943 and attached the squadron to it.[1][f] In December reconnaissance assets in India were centralized under Photo Reconnaissance Force, Eastern Air Command, a combined Army Air Forces and Royal Air Forceheadquarters. The provisional group was discontinued on 17 January 1944 and its components, including the 9th, returned to the control of Tenth Air Force.[5]
The squadron remained in India after the Japanese surrender, but left for the United States in mid-November 1945 aboard the USS General M. C. Meigs. Upon its arrival at the port of embarkation in the United States in December 1945, it was inactivated.[1]
The squadron began its current, and longest, active period a few months later, in August, at March Air Force Base, California, where it equipped with the McDonnell Douglas KC-10 Extender as part of the 22d Bombardment Wing. The following year, the squadron provided support for Operation Urgent Fury, the rescue of US students and replacement of the revolutionary government of Grenada with a constitutional one. On 19 September 1985, as part of a program to combine World War II combat units with those formed after the war, the 9th Air Refueling Squadron was consolidated with the 9th Photographic Reconnaissance Squadron.[1]
In 1989, squadron assets assisted in Operation Just Cause, the 1989 incursion into Panama that ended Manuel Noriega's rule. The squadron supported deployments to Southwest Asia from 1990 to 1991 in Operations Desert Shield and Desert Storm. In September 1991, SAC implemented the Objective Wing organizational model and the squadron was transferred from the 22d Wing to its newly activated 22d Operations Group.[1][3]
Although not deployed as a unit, crews and planes from the 9th supported Operation Southern Watch, enforcement of the no fly zone in southern Iraq through the 1990s by refueling marine aircraft deploying to Aviano Air Base, Italy. Its crews provided refueling for B-52s participating in Operation Desert Strike, cruise missile attacks on Iraqi forces in northern Iraq in September 1996 and Operation Desert Fox, later attacks on suspected Iraqi weapons sites. That same year, after terrorists sponsored by Libya struck a nightclub in Berlin, its crews supported Operation El Dorado Canyon, the retaliatory bombing of Libya. It aided Operation Allied Force, the NATO operation against Serbia in Kosovo in 1999 and Operation Deny Flight, enforcement of a no fly zone over Bosnia Herzegovina. It has provided airlift and refueling support for presidential travel.[3]
In 1997, the 9th orchestrated the first sixteen-ship mixed-cell refueling formation in AMC history for Operation Centraz Bat, the longest airdrop mission in aviation history, in which eight Boeing C-17 Globemaster IIIs delivered 540 paratroopers and their supporting equipment over nearly 8,000 miles.[3] Following the events of 9/11, the 9th supported Operation Noble Eagle. Starting in October 2001 and continuing to the present day, the unit has provided logistics support of Operation Enduring Freedom and undertaken support in Operation Iraqi Freedom of 2003.[citation needed] In 2015, the squadron's boom operators were awarded the Albert Evans Trophy as the best refueling section in the USAF.[16]
Lineage
9th Photographic Reconnaissance Squadron
Constituted as the 9th Photographic Squadron on 19 January 1942
Activated on 1 February 1942
Redesignated 9th Photographic Reconnaissance Squadron on 9 June 1942
Redesignated 9th Photographic Squadron (Light) on 6 February 1943
Redesignated 9th Photographic Reconnaissance Squadron on 13 November 1943
Inactivated on 4 December 1945
Consolidated with the 9th Air Refueling Squadron as the 9th Air Refueling Squadron on 19 September 1985[1]
9th Air Refueling Squadron
Constituted as the 9th Air Refueling Squadron, Medium on 24 July 1951
Activated on 1 August 1951
Discontinued and inactivated on 15 December 1965
Redesignated 9th Air Refueling Squadron, Heavy on 12 December 1969
Activated on 1 January 1970
Inactivated on 27 January 1982
Activated on 1 August 1982
Consolidated with the 9th Photographic Reconnaissance Squadron on 19 September 1985
Redesignated 9th Air Refueling Squadron on 1 September 1991[1]
Assignments
First Air Force, 1 February 1942
Tenth Air Force, 29 March 1942 (flight attached to Fourteenth Air Force, 10 March – 12 July 1943)
Army Air Forces, India-Burma Sector, 30 October 1943 (attached to 5306th Photographic and Reconnaissance Group (Provisional), 30 October 1943; Tenth Air Force after 17 January 1944)
Tenth Air Force, 7 March 1944
8th Photographic Group (later 8th Reconnaissance Group), 25 April 1944
Army Air Forces, India-Burma Theater, c. October–4 December 1945
9th Bombardment Wing (later 9th Strategic Aerospace Wing), 16 June 1952 – 15 December 1965 (attached to 303d Bombardment Wing until 30 April 1953; 5th Air Division, 18 April – 16 July 1955; SAC Liaison Team, 2 May – 1 July 1956)
^Approved 19 July 1971. Description: On a Blue disc edged with a narrow Blue border fimbriated Red, a Red elliptical globe, rimmed and grid lined White. Issuing from the rim in sinister and arced to form the figure 9, a spiralling White contrail terminating below a Red and White ascending flight symbol. From January 1970 until this emblem was approved, the squadron used the emblem of the 903d Air Refueling Squadron, which it had replaced at Beale AFB.
^This emblem was designed for the squadron by Disney Studios, but not officially approved before the squadron moved overseas. The complexity of the emblem made it difficult to reproduce overseas and it was replaced by the tiger cub emblem, which did not receive official endorsement, either.
^It is not clear whether the detachment with the China Air Task Force flew earlier combat missions in China.
^The F-5 had more powerful engines, longer range and better communications equipment.
^The other flying squadrons in the 5306th Group were the 20th Tactical Reconnaissance Squadron and the 24th Combat Mapping Squadron.
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