Eleventh Air Force - History

History

Military aircraft began flying in Alaska in 1920 when the "Black Wolf Squadron" were flown from Mitchel Field, New York arrived at Nome on 24 August. The DeHavilland DH-4s had a black profile of a Wolf's head painted on their sides and proved that Alaska could be linked to the Continental United States by air. The aircraft flew up though British Columbia and stopped at Fairbanks on the way to Nome. In 1924, the around the world flight by the Army using Douglas "World Cruiser"s also transited though Alaska. However, the first permanently based military aircraft began to deploy to Alaska during the last half of 1940 after the breakout of World War II in Europe and tensions began to deteriorate with Japan. To coordinate air activities there, the Alaskan Defense Command established the Air Field Forces, Alaskan Defense Command on 29 May 1941.

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