The 416th Air Expeditionary Group (416 AEG) was a provisional unit assigned to the United States Air Force Air Mobility Command.
The wing's World War II predecessor unit, the 416th Bombardment Group was a A-20 Havoc light Bomb Group assigned to Ninth Air Force in Western Europe. It was awarded a Distinguished Unit Citation for its actions in France when, in spite of intense resistance, the group bombed bridges, railways, rolling stock, and a radar station to disrupt the German retreat through the Falaise-Argentan gap, 6–9 August 1944.
The 416th Bombardment Wing was primarily a Strategic Air Command B-52 Stratofortress organization that conducted strategic bombardment training and air refueling operations on a global scale to meet SAC commitments, that was based at the former Griffiss Air Force Base in New York. 416th BW crews and aircraft were deployed to the Pacific during the Vietnam War era to support SAC operations during the conflict.
It was inactivated as part of the Post-Cold War drawdown of United States strategic forces in 1995 (BRAC 1993) and the closure of Griffiss AFB.
The current status of this unit is not publicly known. It previously served as the host unit at Karshi-Khanabad Air Base (K2), in Qarshi, Uzbekistan, from 2002–2005. It was known to support operations against al-Qaeda in Afghanistan while active at Karshi-Khanabad.
Famous quotes containing the words air, operations and/or group:
“The air split into nine levels,
Some gift of tongues of the whistler”
—James Dickey (b. 1923)
“There is a patent office at the seat of government of the universe, whose managers are as much interested in the dispersion of seeds as anybody at Washington can be, and their operations are infinitely more extensive and regular.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“Belonging to a group can provide the child with a variety of resources that an individual friendship often cannot—a sense of collective participation, experience with organizational roles, and group support in the enterprise of growing up. Groups also pose for the child some of the most acute problems of social life—of inclusion and exclusion, conformity and independence.”
—Zick Rubin (20th century)