530th Bombardment Squadron - History

History

Established in late 1942 as a B-24 Liberator heavy bomb squadron; trained under Second Air Force in Texas, and later in Colorado. Deployed to the Southwest Pacific Area (SPA) in April 1943, being assigned to Fifth Air Force in Australia.

From airfields in Australia, including Fenton Airfield, the squadron reached out to the Japanese installations in the Netherlands East Indies. Moved to the Philippines where the squadron operated in early 1945, then to Okinawa where combat operations ended after the Japanese Capitulation in August. After the war, squadron personnel were demobilized and returned to the United States, the B-24s sent to reclamation in the Philippines. Inactivated as a paper unit in early 1946.

In 1947, the squadron was reactivated as a reserve unit of the Strategic Air Command at MacDill Field, Florida. The squadron remained an inactive reserve unit until 1951 when the squadron was inactivated.

The squadron was again activated in 1955 as part of the 380th Strategic Aerospace Wing and equipped with the B-47 Stratojet. Flying the B-47, the squadron took a place as part of SAC's nuclear deterrent to war which were designed to carry nuclear weapons and to penetrate Soviet air defenses with its high operational ceiling and near supersonic speed. The squadron flew the B-47 for about a decade when by the mid-1960s it had become obsolescent and vulnerable to new Soviet air defenses. The squadron began to send its stratojets to AMARC at Davis-Monthan AFB for retirement, being inactivated in 1966.