Twelfth Air Force
The Twelfth Air Force (Air Forces Southern) (12AF – AFSOUTH) is a numbered air force of the United States Air Force Air Combat Command (ACC). It is headquartered at Davis-Monthan Air Force Base, Arizona.
The command serves as a primary conventional fighter and bomber warfighting headquarters trained and ready for worldwide employment of airpower. It is responsible for the combat readiness of 10 active-duty wings and one direct reporting unit. These subordinate commands operate more than 400 aircraft with more than 42,000 uniformed and civilian Airmen. It takes part in a multitude of operations in the United States Southern Command (USSOUTHCOM) area of focus alongside partner nations in Central and South America, ensuring a safe, secure and stable region.
Established on 20 August 1942 at Bolling Field, District of Columbia, 12 AF was a United States Army Air Forces combat air force deployed to the European Theater of World War II. It engaged in operations in North Africa, the Mediterranean, France and Germany.
During the Cold War, 12 AF was one of the Numbered Air Forces of the United States Air Forces in Europe (USAFE) and later Tactical Air Command (TAC), Its units engaged in combat operations during the Vietnam War, as well as Operation Desert Storm. As a result of the Global War on Terrorism, most 12 AF units have operated in the United States Central Command AOR.
12 AF serves as the air and space component to U.S. Southern Command. Therefore 12 AF is also dual-roled as the Air Forces Southern.
Read more about Twelfth Air Force: Organization, History
Famous quotes containing the words twelfth, air and/or force:
“The twelfth day of Christmas,
My true love sent to me
Twelve lords a-leaping.”
—Unknown. The Twelve Days of Christmas (l. 89–91)
“Our air up here is good for the disease—I mean good against the disease,... but it is also good for the disease.”
—Thomas Mann (1875–1955)
“What I would like to write is a book about nothing, a book without exterior attachments, which would be held together by the inner force of its style, as the earth without support is held in the air—a book that would have almost no subject or at least in which the subject would be almost invisible.”
—Gustave Flaubert (1821–1880)