Berry Field Air National Guard Base - History

History

The Air National Guard presence at BNA dates back to 1937, when the 105th Observation Squadron, a U.S. Army Air Corps-gained element of the Tennessee National Guard initially took up residence at the airport. With the advent of World War II, the squadron was called into active Federal service as a U.S. Army Air Forces unit and transitioned to a bombardment mission flying the B-25 Mitchell medium bomber in the Pacific theater. At war's end and into the immediate postwar period, the unit transitioned to a fighter mission flying the P-47 Thunderbolt. With the establishment of the U.S. Air Force as a separate service in 1947, the unit was redesignated the 118th Fighter Group. Subsequent redesignations occurred in 1950 as the 118th Composite Wing and in 1953 as the 118th Tactical Reconnaissance Wing, during which time the unit operated the F-51 Mustang, RF-80 Shooting Star and RF-84 Thunderflash while operationally gained by the Tactical Air Command (TAC).

In 1961, the wing took up to an airlift mission, first operating C-97 Stratofreighter, followed by C-124 Globemaster II and finally C-130 Hercules aircraft under the cognizance of the Military Air Transport Service (MATS), Military Airlift Command (MAC) and Air Mobility Command (AMC), with combat service in Operation Desert Shield, Operation Desert Storm, Operation Enduring Freedom and Operation Iraqi Freedom.

In October 2007, it was announced that as an amendment to the BRAC 2005 decision, the 118 AW would continue to retain a flying mission, transitioning from an Air Mobility Command (AMC)-gained unit to that of a training organization operationally gained by the Air Education and Training Command (AETC). As the C-130 International Training Center, the 118 AW assumed a new role as a C-130 Formal Training Unit (FTU) in support of DoD Foreign Military Sales (FMS), training up to 150 international military C-130E and C-130H flight crew and maintenance students annually. Although the 118 AW's C-130H2 aircraft were transferred to other Air National Guard airlift wings, the 118 AW did gain six WC-130H aircraft that had been retired from weather reconnaissance duties with the Air Force Reserve Command's 403d Wing at Keesler AFB, Mississippi. The first class of international C-130 students trained by the 118 AW graduated in October 2008.