904 Expeditionary Air Wing is a wing of the Royal Air Force. It is currently stationed at Kandahar International Airport in Afghanistan controlling RAF operations at the air base there. It was activated on 1 April 2006 as part of a modernisation package to make the RAF more deployable on an expeditionary basis. It currently may report to No. 83 Expeditionary Air Group.
In World War II, the wing existed for a brief period as 904 Tactical Wing. It was first formed on 1 October 1944 as a tactical wing and its four squadrons were equipped with P-47 Thunderbolts and operated in tactical support of the Fourteenth Army in the liberation of Burma. In early 1945 the wing was withdrawn from Burma to prepare for supporting the invasion of Malaya scheduled for later in the year. However the end of the war intervened and the wing was re-roled. Deployed to Java in the Netherlands East Indies in the aftermath of the war two of its Thunderbolt squadrons were replaced by a C-47 Dakota squadron and aircraft of the wing took part in the repatriation of Allied prisoners of the war and internees. Following completion of that task the wing was disbanded on 30 November 1946.
Famous quotes containing the words air and/or wing:
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Methought she purged the air of pestilence;
That instant was I turned into a hart,
And my desires, like fell and cruel hounds,
E’er since pursue me.”
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616)
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—Ben Hecht (1893–1964)