DEPARTMENT OF THE AIR FORCE ORGANIZATIONAL HISTORIES
Air Force Reserve
The Air Force Reserve is a reserve component of the Air Force created by Congress to provide a reserve for active duty. It consists of the members of the officers' section of the Air Force Reserve and of the enlisted section of the Air Force Reserve. It includes all reserves of the Air Force who are not members of the Air National Guard.
The purpose of the Air Force Reserve is to provide trained units and qualified persons available for active duty in the United States Air Force, in time of war or national emergency, and at such other times as the national security may require, to fill the needs of the armed forces whenever more units and persons are needed than are in the regular components.
Whenever Congress determines that more organizations are needed for the national security than are in the regular components of the Air Force, components of the Air Force Reserves shall be ordered to active duty and retained as long as needed
The Organized Reserves consist of the Officers’ Reserve Corps, the Enlisted Reserve Corps, and the Organized Reserve Units. They include troops of all branches necessary to supplement the Regular Army and National Guard in order to complete the first line of defense in a mobilization of the Army of the United States. In time of peace, they are a potential, rather than an actual fighting force. The peace establishment is capable of rapid expansion by the reception of trained and untrained men but will require a period of training in mobilization areas before becoming available for combat operations. The Officers’ Reserve Corps is composed of citizens who voluntarily accept commissions in as officers of all grades. It provides the great mass of officers required for war. In time of a national emergency expressly declared by Congress, the President may order reserve officers to active duty for any period of time. The Enlisted Reserve Corps is composed of persons voluntarily enlisted for service in this corps. Members of the Enlisted Reserve Corps may be placed on active duty in the same manner as are members of the Officers’ Reserve corps.
History of the Air Force Reserve
The United States Air Force Reserve traces its origins to June 1916 when the National Defense Act strengthened the Aviation Section of the Signal Corps and authorized a reserve corps of 2,300 officers and men. The first organized air reserve unit, designated the First Reserve Aero Squadron, was formed in May 1917, and was ordered to active military service soon after the United States entered World War I. The major contribution the reserves made to the Air Service war effort was the approximately 10,000 pilots who graduated from the civilian and military flying schools and went into the service rated as Reserve Military Aviators.
the Air Corps Reserve almost slipped into oblivion after World War I. It Suffered the same benign neglect that afflicted the active Army Air Corps and the Air Service before it. The program was sketchy; money and equipment were scarce. Nevertheless, due in large measure to the agitation of such groups as the Reserve Officers Association and the Air Reserve Association, Congress eventually funded Army Air Corps modernization and the reservists received fallout benefits.
Between the World Wars the Organized Reserve units were composed of officers of the Officers’ Reserve Corps, enlisted men of the Enlisted Reserve Corps, supplemented by a small cadre of officers and enlisted men of the Regular Army. In peace time, Organized Reserve units were maintained as cadres, with a war strength complement of officers and a limited number of noncommissioned officers. This personnel constituted the nucleus of the war time unit. This was primarily because these units were generally located on or near Army air fields or Organized Reserve airdromes and had easy access to army aircraft. Many of these locations also happened to be located near cities that were air hubs for major U.S. airlines. This was significant because many airline pilots were also Reserve officers. Regular units could make their equipment and facilities available to the Reservists to support their training.
Organized Reserve squadrons were a mixed bag. Like the Regular Army Inactive units, the most active were those squadrons that were lucky enough to be based at an Army airfield or at a Reserve airdrome. Reserve squadrons that were located at or near Regular Army airfields were authorized the use of the aircraft from Regular Army squadrons to maintain flying proficiency. The Organized Reserve squadrons in these situations generally held their Inactive Training Period meetings and summer training at those airfields as well. A small number of Reserve units were assigned Army aircraft that were based at their local airports. These units were typically allocated only about four to six planes and they were usually a mixture of types, mostly trainers and obsolete observation planes. There were only a handful of these units, usually only two or three per corps area. Other squadrons that were collocated at the same airfield were lucky as well because the pilots of those squadrons could freely use the owning squadron’s aircraft based at the airport. Since there were few Reserve enlisted personnel in these squadrons, the maintenance of these aircraft was conducted by a small Regular Army air corps detachment assigned to the field or the Reserve airdrome.
Functional organizations were ordered to camp as units; the personnel of pool units were usually ordered to camp as individuals and were attached for training to the functional units. These squadrons had a variety of missions which they performed to support the operations of other organizations or the operation of the air corps’ training base.
A number of the Regular Army Inactive units were organized with Reserve personnel, as were many of the Organized Reserve units. None appear to have been functional units in the Inactive Training Period and only ten were known to have attended a summer camp as a unit. Most likely, the personnel assigned to the initiated Regular Army Inactive and Organized Reserve organizations trained as individuals with other units both at camp and during the Inactive Training Period. None of these units are connected to Pursuit or Fighter units with the same numbers that were active in WW II.
Some Organized Reserve squadrons were functional units but did not have the luxury of having assigned planes or Regular Army aircraft based nearby. These units were functional only because of the assigned personnel made efforts to conduct training meetings with the sparse resources at hand, which occasionally included privately-owned aircraft. These units’ Regular Army instructors were also able to arrange for Army aircraft to be flown into a local airfield for weekend training events, but this was uncommon. A sizable number of Organized Reserve squadrons were pool units made of up geographically dispersed members. These units were occasionally ordered to summer training, but usually their personnel attended camps as individuals attached to other units.
In addition to the mostly trainers, obsolete observation planes and civilian aircraft, OR organizations were also allocated observation balloons. These Lighter Than Air (LTA) units were initiated n the interwar period, but substantial numbers were never assigned any personnel. Many others were demobilized in 1927 and 1928, and by the following year, many of those that had been initiated had now been inactivated. Most of those personnel appear to have been transferred to other Reserve organizations, but not necessarily air corps units. The most active were those units located at or near installations where Regular Army LTA units were based.
Most of the Reserve LTA units were typically located in small communities and cities too far away from active units to enjoy such benefits. Additionally, the Reserve companies typically consisted of only four to eight officers whose residences were often geographically dispersed making it difficult to frequently assemble the unit during the Inactive Training Period. Thus, the large majority of the Reserve organizations were most probably pool units. Moreover, less than thirty of these units were ever ordered to summer training as units. In 1933, a large number of additional Reserve LTA units were demobilized as the Army struggled to find the right mix of units.
On the eve of World War II, there were 1,500 Army Air Corps reserve pilots on extended active duty. These, plus 1,300 non-rated officers and 400 enlisted men, provided the Army Air Corps a small but skilled reserve augmentation in the critical early days of the war. By late 1940, there were 2,300 Air Corps reserve officers on active duty. At the end of 1941, the United States having now entered World War 11, there were more than 19,400 Reservists on active duty with the Army Air Corps, including 9,257 pilots.
On 1 July 1946, the Reserve’s first postwar training flight took place at Memphis, Tennessee. The post-World War II Air Reserve program, directed by the Air Defense Command, took the form of a “flying club” with no objective beyond offering pilot proficiency training in World War Il-vintage trainers and P-5Is. United States Air Force Reserve, established on 14 April 1948, struggled with a continued shortage of both funds and modern aircraft.
The Air Force acknowledged the weaknesses that plagued its reserve and worked to devise a more realistic and effective program. It took direct intervention from President Harry S Truman, in Executive Order 10007 (15 October 1948), to bring matters to a head. In response to this directive, the Air Force vested oversight of the Air Force Reserve program in the Air Staff-level Office of the Special Assistant to the Chief of Staff for Reserve Forces, headed by Lt Gen Elwood R Quesada. The Air Force established, on 1 December 1948, the Continental Air Command (CONAC) to manage the Reserve field program.
General Quesada and the CONAC staff created a five-part Reserve program that included mobilization augmentees, corollary units, Table of Organization and Equipment (T/O&E) units, Volunteer Air Reserve training units, and a series of extension courses open to all Reservists. Planners initially believed that the first two categories were more important, but the T/O&E units soon became the head of the reorganized and revitalized Air Force Reserve. This force included five light bombardment and twenty troop carrier wings. Air Force Reservists now trained, for the first time, in tactical units designated for mobilization on short notice during crises.
In June 1949, the Continental Air Command activated 152 corollary units for itself and the other major commands. Corollary units consisting of Air Force Reservists, formed in the vicinity of Regular Air Force bases, were trained and administered by Regular Air Force units of the same type, and used Regular Air Force equipment. The service was also developing a plan to use reservists on extended active duty to serve as instructors for reserve units and to staff the training center. These included light and medium bombardment, all-weather fighter, troop carrier, reconnaissance, vehicle repair, communications, pilot training, technical training, bombardment training, air weather, air transport, airways, and air communications and air rescue units. The corollary training program progressed slowly. A superficial logic to the corollary unit concept appealed to government officials responsible for designing reserve programs. It just seemed so obvious that the best and simplest way to train a reservist was to mix him in with an existing regular force unit and let him go at it.
The objective of the corollary unit was to develop sufficient individual and unit proficiency to permit employment of the corollary unit personnel immediately upon mobilization as individual replacements or augmentees or as an integral unit. The avowed purpose of the program was to keep assigned personnel abreast of new policies, procedures, weapons, and techniques of the Air Force and to maintain their military proficiency.
The Air Force Reserve training center program was a continuation of the old center program, but the number of centers was reduced from 41 to 23, and they would provide the personnel, equipment, facilities, and manpower to administer and train 25 attached Air Force Reserve combat wings: Perhaps the principal difference between the Volunteer Air Reserve training units and the composite units they replaced was that the new program was set in an organizational framework of wings, groups, squadrons, and flights.
The Continental Air Command succeeded relatively well in building the combat wing and the Volunteer Air Reserve training programs for which it was responsible. It activated and equipped the twenty-five reserve combat wings at its flying centers in short order, and by the end of fiscal year 1950 the units were progressing acceptably toward operational readiness. The command even managed to enroll many thousands in the far-flung Volunteer Air Reserve program, despite its skimpy attractions.
The corollary units were beset with sundry problems, and the Air Force never really defined the objective of the mobilization assignee program during fiscal year 1950. The entire, new Air Force Reserve program was to become effective on July 1, but on May 6, 1949, General McConnell directed Headquarters Continental Air Command to implement immediately that phase of the new program pertaining to the training of Air Force Reserve wings at the twenty three Air Force Reserve training centers. The reserve units included twenty troop carrier wings equipped with C-47s or C-46s and five light bombardment wings flying B-26s.
These missions were selected for the Air Force Reserve because the Air National Guard was already primarily a fighter force, and the Air Force did not have the installations, materiel, nor technical personnel to support medium and heavy bomber units in the Air Force Reserve. The reserve wings would differ from active force wings in that air installation, food services, air police, and motor vehicle squadrons were omitted from their organizations, and all units were limited to 25 percent of the normally required personnel and equipment.
Although the 1950 Air Force Reserve Program assigned a higher training priority to the corollary units, in practice the equipped reserve wings assigned to training centers fared better. The training centers existed primarily to train members of reserve units, but the Regular Air Force units supporting corollary units had operational missions that came first. Each corollary unit was to train one weekend per month and have a two-week tour of active duty each year. This sacrificed the regular unit’s effectiveness, which the Chief of Staff had accepted, but it was a fine point as to how much its combat efficiency could safely be dissipated in training duties.
The active force’s tactical flying units were not well suited to conduct corollary unit training from the standpoint of the reserve. Units of such commands as the Air Training Command and the Military Air Transport Service had relatively stable locations, but tactical combat units were mobile by nature. The tactical forces frequently deployed from one station to another as strategic or tactical considerations dictated. They often participated in exercises and maneuvers, with a resultant interruption in reserve training.
Reservists, bound to their communities as citizens, could not accompany the deploying units for indeterminate or long training periods. This instability in corollary unit training was conducive neither to the development of proficiency nor to the maintenance of reservist good will. At the end of the first year of the new program, the Air Force Reserve corollary program included about 15,000 members who comprised an individual resource that the Air Force ultimately used. In November 1949, after five months’ experience with the program, the Headquarters Continental Air Command staff concluded that the tactical squadrons of combat wings should not be burdened with reserve corollary training responsibilities.
In December 1950, Lt. Gen. Ennis C. Whitehead, Commander of Continental Air Command identified a number of weaknesses of the Air Force Reserve program to the Chief of Staff of the Air Force. He asserted that the basic weaknesses of the reserve program stemmed from the lack of a realistic reserve forces troop basis and an Air Force mobilization plan. Until they were developed, he asserted, the Air Force was working in the dark. Lacking a firm mobilization requirements base, officials responsible for the reserve program could not define the necessary training. In his judgment, this single deficiency contributed most to the difficulties of the reserve forces. Because the Air Force lacked proper plans for its reserve forces, its concepts for the organization and development of reserve forces were faulty. General Whitehead dismissed the corollary flying units as unsuccessful.
He deemed supervision of the existing reserve program as inadequate and proposed several innovations in structure including the establishment of geographical district headquarters, intended to get management closer to the reservists. He asserted that the Air Force had failed to invest adequate resources in the reserve programs and had received commensurate value in return. He enumerated other problems, but he stressed inadequate planning, the failure to establish requirements, the need to spend money, and the need to promote a sense of mutual interdependence and understanding between the regular and reserve component.
When the Korean War erupted in 1950, the Air Force Reserve consisted of more than 315,800 non-drilling and nearly 58,500 drilling Reservists in combat sustaining units, namely 20 troop carrier wings outfitted with C-46s and C-47s and later C-119s, and five light bombardment wings of B-26s. Between July 1950 and June 1953, the Air Force mobilized nearly 147,000 Air Force Reservists to active service for periods from one to three years. Five Air Force Reserve units remained on active service while another 15 units were called up to replace and fill out active units.
Air Force Reserve made significant contributions to the active force during the Korean War, but the reserve’s wartime service decimated its ranks, disrupted its organization, and exposed structural and conceptual weaknesses. As a result, the Air Force spent several years after the war rebuilding its Reserve force and redefining the Reserve concept.
Three major categories within the Reserve components were established on 1 Jan 1953; the Ready Reserve, the Standby Reserve, and the Retired Reserve.
Devised during the Korean War, a new long range plan for the Reserve Forces implemented in fiscal 1953 provided for an Air Force Reserve program which included fighter-bomber, troop carrier, tactical reconnaissance, and pilot training wings. By May 1954, the jet fighter had reached the Air Force Reserve, and the fighter-bomber wings had T-33s and F-80s assigned.
Between 1952 and 1955, Congress passed three laws that had a significant impact on the reserve program. The Armed Forces Reserve Act of 1952 standardized pay and training groups and established the Ready, Standby, and Retired mobilization categories; the Reserve Officers Personnel Act of 1954 established a permanent system of promotions for Reservists; the Reserve Forces Act of 1955 doubled the size of the Ready upon organization they reported to the obligation and authorized the recruitment of personnel who had no prior military sendee.
In January 1955 the Chief of Staff of the Air Force announced a firm mobilization requirement for fifty-one Air Reserve Forces wings, including twenty-four in the Air Force Reserve. Consequently, the pilot training wings were replaced by tactical units and the tactical reconnaissance wings by tactical bombardment wings. At the end of fiscal 1955, the Air Force Reserve flying unit program consisted of twenty-four wings—thirteen troop carrier, nine fighter-bomber, and two tactical bombardment. Two years later the first three of an eventual five air rescue squadrons were activated, the jets kept coming, and the force's inventory included C-119s, C-46s, SA-16s, F-80s, F-84s, and F-86s.
In the mid-1950s, Air Force Reserve flying units began to conduct peacetime missions for
the Air Force. Normal peacetime troops carrier wing training generated airlift tire active force used to help meet its own commitments. In 1956, Reserve troops carrier wings moved US Coast Guard equipment from New York to several sites in the Caribbean during Operation 16-Ton. In 1957, Reserve transport units began Operation Swiftlift, flying airlift missions in support of Tactical Air Command, and in 1958 they inaugurated Operation Ready Swap, transporting equipment between Air Material Command bases. They were also flying humanitarian airlift missions and dropping paratroopers for the Army.
In 1957, the Air Force reduced the Air Force Reserve flying unit program to forty-five troop carrier and five air rescue squadrons. The Air National Guard assumed the fighter mission when the Air Force found that Guard and Reserve fighter squadrons could not fulfill tire air-to-air mission and the Tactical Air Command could not absorb the fighters as an air-to-ground support force. These operational considerations, coupled with economics imposed by the Eisenhower administration, drove a reduction in the number of Reserve units.
By January 1958, the component had been reduced to forty-five troop carrier squadrons and five air rescue squadrons, and it had lost the fighter mission to the Air National Guard. Also in January 1958, the air reserve technician program was implemented in the Air Force Reserve. This program improved the readiness of Air Force Reserve units by providing a permanent cadre of civilian technicians who were also key reservists in their units ready for instant mobilization. When the first two technicians were sworn in in January 1958, the Air Force Reserve passed a major milepost on the way to operational readiness. As the technicians were phased in over the next two years, the air reserve flying centers to which the Reserve units had been assigned were discontinued.
In 1960 the Air Force reorganized the management structure of the Air Force Reserve and redirected its individual training programs. The gaining commands took over the supervision of training and the inspection of Air Force Reserve units. In a major redirection of the individual training program, the classroom and project training of the air reserve centers and their reserve groups and squadrons gave way for the most part to a new program of post-strike recovery and support units and bases, a program which became extremely popular for most of the reservists involved. Unfortunately, the Office of the Secretary of Defense and government auditors did not share their enthusiasm, and by 1965 the program was a memory. In the meantime, the Continental Air Command's numbered air forces were discontinued and replaced by Air Force Reserve regions, eighty-five percent of whose one hundred-man staffs were reservists. This gave the reservist his first real role in the management of reserve programs above the unit level.
It was as a mobilization force that the post-Korean Air Force Reserve was intended, and parts of it mobilized on four different occasions in the 1960's as well as once in the first year of the new decade. When new tensions in Berlin stiffened Cold War attitudes in 1961, President John F. Kennedy ordered a number of Air Force Reserve C-124 troop carrier units to active duty to augment the airlift force should it be required in Europe. Recalled on October 1, 1961 and released on August 27, 1962. The units were assigned to Tactical Air Command and conducted normal troop carrier training and operations out of their home stations. Meanwhile, during October and November 1961, approximately one hundred officers and men of the five Air Force Reserve air rescue squadrons served voluntary sixty-day tours to provide rescue coverage for the deployment of mobilized Air National Guard fighter aircraft to Europe.
On October 28, 1962, just two months after the release of the C-124 units, one C-123 and seven C-119 troop carrier wings and six aerial port squadrons were recalled to active duty, for a month as it turned out, as a result of the discovery of Russian offensive missiles in Cuba. The units operated out of their home stations, sending planes and crews to support the buildup of forward operating locations in the Southeast and to prepare for a possible airborne assault.
In addition to the 14,000 reservists mobilized with units, members of the Air Force Reserve's recovery units and support units utilized more than five thousand man-days in voluntary support of the major commands which dispersed aircraft during the crisis. Also, reservists assigned to the Air Reserve sectors and air terminal squadrons utilized 190 man-days. Finally, as the crisis abated, 290 pilots, 64 navigators, and 88 flight engineers of the recalled troop carrier units voluntarily
remained on active duty an additional fifteen days to help return dispersed Air Force units to their pre-crisis posture.
Commander of MAC, General Howell M. Estes, Jr., directed in January 1966 a complete reappraisal of the command’s future Reserve needs. While the main focus was to be on strategic airlift, the full range of MAC’S many mission areas was to be included. Four key points of guidance were followed: that augmentation would be primarily by organized units, these units would be complementary to and compatible with the force to be augmented, the units’ organizational structure and concept of operation should permit flexible response at all levels of activity rather than only under general war mobilization, and that the units’ operation must be cost effective. Reservists fly the same missions, establish autonomous Reserve units, and maintain the same professional standards as their active-duty counterparts.
The Air Force called on the Air Force Reserve to participate in the Vietnam War effort. Reservists voluntarily provided direct and indirect support with few mobilizations. Needing more strategic airlift into the Vietnam Theater, the Air Force Reserve responded by flying C-124 missions as part of their inactive duty, annual two-week training, and an additional 36 days of inactive duty days. Air Force Reserve rescue and recovery, intelligence and medical specialists, aerial porters, maintainers, lawyers, and chaplains comprised the range of support provided.
The Continental Air Command coordinated two morale airlifts in which the Air Force Reserve and the Air National Guard were the primary carriers. The first occurred late in 1965. Dubbed Operation Christmas Star, it involved the delivery of several hundreds of tons of Christmas packages to U.S. troops in Southeast Asia, Europe, and Alaska. Then, beginning in July 1966, Continental Air Command coordinated Combat Leave, occasioned by a labor strike against five major airlines. With thousands of military travelers affected, especially those trying to get back from Vietnam on leave, the airlift transported 122,863 service men during its sixty-five day duration.
The Air Force Reserve management structure changed with the passage of Public Law 90-168, "The Reserve Bill of Rights and Vitalization Act," in December 1967. Enacted by congressmen opposed to a Defense Department attempt to merge reserve components of the U.S. Army, the new law seemed to guarantee the integrity of reserve components.
The Air Force initiated in 1968 the associate concept whereby Air Force Reserve personnel would associate with an active duty unit equipped with new C-141s or C-9s, flying and performing maintenance together. The Air Force desired more augmentation from the Air Force Reserve and yet unable to procure enough new C-141s.
On January 15, 1968, the Continental Air Command organized the 944th Military Airlift Group (Provisional) as an associate group at Norton AFB with Col. Richard P. McFarland as commander. Under the provisions of a Continental Air Command programming plan and a Military Airlift Command program action directive, the associate program test got under way. In the absence of an overall Air Force regulation or manual to govern the associate program, ad hoc local agreements broke new ground in the increasingly complex arrangements between the two commands and their subordinate units. The commander of the 63d Military Airlift Wing, the active force parent wing, assumed operational control over the group during unit training assemblies and active duty training periods as well as aircrew members any time they integrated into the active wing for training purpose.
Acceptance of what would become the Air Force Reserve airlift associate program was neither rapid nor unanimous. Recalling the failure of the original corollary program of 1949-1951, Continental Air Command officials did not rush to embrace the new concept, and they influenced General Estes to rename the new venture as the associate program. Air Force Reservists and Air National Guardsmen expressed reservations about the associate concept as they learned their units would not own the new C-141s and C-5s but would merely contribute aircrews and maintenance talent to collocated active force units. The reservists believed the new program was nothing more than a glorified individual program and feared they would eventually lose their identity.
The Reserve Associate Unit is distinctly different from the typical Reserve flying unit. They do not possess their own organic aircraft but rather share aircraft, training equipment, aerospace ground equipment, facilities, and spares with the active duty wing. Augmentation by these Reserve Associate units will ensure full utilization of aircraft under full mobilization. The Reserve Associate Unit Air Reserve Technician (ART) maintenance complement is authorized manpower to train traditional reservists and to provide aircraft production capability in support of active duty and Reserve flying hour requirements.
The objective of the Air Force Reserve associate program is to provide trained personnel to be the initial and primary source of augmentation of the active forces in any emergency requiring rapid and sustaining expansion of the strategic airlift and air refueling capabilities. Additionally, the Air Force Reserve associate units perform peacetime missions as an adjunct to, or corollary of, training.AMC and AFRC, respectively, must ensure that the active duty host and Air Force Reserve associate units are indoctrinated and trained to achieve this objective.
The Reserve associate units use aircraft, training equipment, aerospace ground equipment, facilities, and spares with the active duty wings. Augmentation by these Reserve Associate units will ensure full utilization of AMC aircraft under full mobilization. The Reserve Associate Unit Air Reserve Technician (ART) maintenance complement is authorized manpower to train traditional reservists and to provide aircraft production capability in support of active duty and Reserve flying hour requirements.
In January 1968, after avoiding mobilizing Reserve Forces for more than three years, the Johnson administration responded in part to the Pueblo seizure by mobilizing Air Reserve and Naval Reserve forces. Two Air Force Reserve military airlift wings and five groups equipped with C-124s and an aerospace rescue and recovery squadron flying HC-97s were ordered to active military service on January 26th. On May 13th, to replace some specific active force shortages, a tactical airlift group minus some support elements, three aerial port squadrons, a medical service squadron, and an aeromedical evacuation squadron were recalled. All were released by June 1969.
There were three distinct modes in which the C-124 units operated during the mobilization. At times each operated out of its home station supporting the Military Airlift Command's world-wide mission. At other times, each participated in a provisional airlift squadron set up at RAF Mildenhall, England, from July 1968 to May 1969 to support the United States Air Forces in Europe. This freed an active duty C-130 wing for reassignment to Southeast Asia.
Shortly after the C-124s began plying their way between the MAC ports and Southeast Asia, the Air Force Reserve troop carrier and transport units, the C-119s and the C-123s, along with a few C-124s not committed to Southeast Asia, participated in the U.S. airlift operations in revolt-torn Dominican Republic. Having demonstrated their capability, the Air Force Reserve C-119s soon took over MAC's offshore routes in the Atlantic and Caribbean, freeing the airlift command's four-engine aircraft for direct support of the Southeast Asia requirement. In the seven years beginning in fiscal 1966, the C-119s conducted 3,648 offshore missions for MAC, flying 27,138 hours and carrying 8,418 tons of cargo and 3,155 passengers. Their support ended only when the C-119s left the inventory in March 1973.
Support of the Air Force's Southeast Asia mission was not the sole province of the Air Force Reserve flying units, for nonflying units and individuals contributed their share as well. Medics, engineers, aerial porters, intelligence experts, lawyers, chaplains, and all manner of other mobilization augmentees made significant, lasting, and often unrecorded contributions.
Later in 1968, on the recommendation of the first Chief, Maj. Gen. Tom E. Marchbanks, the Continental Air Command was replaced at Robins AFB, Ga., by Headquarters Air Force Reserve (AFRES), a separate operating agency commanded by another reservist, Maj. Gen. Rollin B. Moore, Jr. Forty percent of the staffs of each of the two new Reserve agencies were reservists, and the Air Force, especially after the second Chief, Maj. Gen. Homer I. Lewis, integrated himself as Chief of Air Force Reserve and Commander of AFRES gave them the chance to operate and run their own programs making the Air Force singularly distinctive among the military services.
In August 1970, Secretary of Defense Melvin R. Laird announced the Total Force Concept, a major reversal of policy whereby the reserve components became the initial source of augmentation of the active force rather than the draft. Three years later, the concept became policy as Secretary James R. Schlesinger proclaimed Total Force Policy as integrating the Active, Guard, and Reserve into a homogeneous whole. Consequently, reserve units had to meet the same readiness standards as the active force and the services had to assure, through equipping, facilities, training, and manning polices that they could.
Reequipped under Total Force as the active Force's manning decreased, the Air Force Reserve acquired new missions, and they were not always conducted in the traditional training by-product mode. Instead, many were directed and regularly scheduled. Thus, Air Force Reservists rotated EC-121s to Iceland to conduct the airborne early warning and control mission there.
Other missions included the Panama Canal rotation, aerial spray, forest fire retardation, aerial refueling, and weather reconnaissance missions which had to be conducted when needed, not necessarily when the reservist could conveniently train. Meanwhile, the airlift and rescue missions went routinely on. In March 1970, the Air Force Reserve’s two air postal and courier groups at Dobbins Air Force Base, Georgia, and Hamilton Air Force Base, California, were mobilized for a few days during a brief postal worker’s strike.
From 14 October to 15 November 1973, Air Force Reserve aircrews from six associate airlift wings participated in C-141 and C-5 flights carrying supplies to Israel during the Yom Kippur
War. Of 650 Reservists who volunteered, 286 aircrew members flew into the Middle East,
including 183 who made flights directly into Israel. The latter group included 24 all-Reserve
crews. At the same time, 1,495 Reserve crew members flew normal MAC missions, again
freeing active duty personnel for flights to the Middle East.
When Maj. Gen. William Lyon became the third Chief of Air Force Reserve in April 1975, the existence of the reserve regions as the intermediate management echelon was threatened by the budgetary axe. He not only defended their need, but he convinced the Air Force to upgrade them as numbered air forces, entities with which the active force was much more comfortable in dealing.
In 1976, Maj Gen William Lyon, third Chief of the Air Force Reserve, replaced the Air Force Reserve regions with numbered air forces oriented toward the gaining commands in an effort to improve Reserve unit readiness. The numbered air forces assumed their place in the chain of command and quickly played roles in supporting the Panama deployments and planning equipment conversions. The Reserve leadership tested its new chain of command and its command control procedures through the Redoubt series of exercises, where Reserve units demonstrated their ability to mobilize, deploy, and operate effectively. The exercises attracted close scrutiny from the gaining commands and the Air Staff, all of which were well-satisfied with what they saw. By late 1978, the Chief of Staff of the Air Force noted that the Air Force Reserve was no longer a “partner” of the Air Force, it was “part” of it.
Rules concerning Reservist availability changed in December 1980, when President Jimmy Carter signed Public Law 96-584 which, among other things, gave the President more flexibility in ordering Reservists to active duty, raising from 50,000 to 100,000, the number lie could recall for up to 90-days without a declaration of war or proclamation of a national emergency. The Air Force Reserve in the 1980s modernization continued throughout the 1980s. In addition to various C-130 transport models and special application variants, the Reserve aircraft inventory included F-4, A-10, and F-16 fighters, and CH-3E, HH-3E, and UH-1N helicopters.
In addition to being manned, the force was capable, as only new or converting units were not combat ready. One aspect of such readiness was the Air Force Reserve's role in supporting the Rapid Deployment Joint Task Force through its associate program. In December 1980 the Military Airlift Command and Headquarters AFRES agreed the Air Force Reserve would provide thirty-eight C-141 aircrews to support the task force. The crews had to be both airdrop and air refueling qualified and were required to sign statements of voluntary availability.
The nonflying and support unit program expanded as well. The aerial port units completed their expansion and realignment, the medical force put contingency hospitals into Lackland AFB, Tex, and Travis AFB, Calif., with detachments at several locations. Aerial port and maintenance units appeared in Guam and Hawaii as the component moved overseas. The force also acquired new missions, establishing electronic security squadrons at Brooks AFB, Tex, and Offutt AFB, Neb., and a military training squadron at Lackland AFB. Reflecting active force changes, the Reserve engineering and services forces evolved from an immobile base-support force to mobile, combat Prime BEEF and service units.
Air Force Reserve individuals and units continued to involve themselves in disaster relief and other humanitarian missions. Early in the period, Reserve chaplains participated in the Cuban refugee resettlement effort. In December 1979 an associate aircrew from the 349th Military Airlift Wing operated one of two C-5s that airlifted nine truck-mounted cranes and nine cargo trucks from Yokota AB, Japan, to Singapore from whence they were transported to Cambodia to support international relief efforts.
As befitted their mission, the Reserve rescue and recovery squadrons discharged a heavy commitment to lifesaving from 1980 through 1983 as they were credited with saving 291 lives while flying almost twelve hundred sorties. Some of their missions were beyond the norm. Three squadrons saved sixty-one lives following the eruption of Mount St. Helens in May 1980. One squadron supported the 1980 Winter Olympics in New York State.
In November 1980 aircrews of the 302d Special Operations Squadron, once a rescue squadron itself, deployed to Nellis AFB, Nev., rescued fifteen guests trapped on balconies of the blazing MGM Grand Hotel in Las Vegas, and the same unit annually airlifted food to Navajo Indians and hay to their livestock stranded by spring floods in Arizona. In 1982 and 1983 all the rescue squadrons supported the National aeronautical and Space Administration's space shuttle launches.
In June 1983, 439th Tactical Airlift Wing aircrews deployed on rotational duty in Central America flew disaster relief missions to Piera, Peru, airlifting 170 tons of food and medical supplies to the remote towns devasted by tropical rains which had fallen for nearly a month. C-130s from the 440th Tactical Airlift Wing on similar duty in April flew 220,000 pounds of relief cargo, primarily medical supplies and tents, to Popayan, Colombia, in earthquake relief operations.
An historically significant operation took place on August 14, 1983, when an Air Force Reserve C-130 from the 433d Tactical Airlift Wing cooperated with the United States Coast Guard in intercepting a surface vessel smuggling fifteen tons of marijuana into the United States. This marked the first such mission conducted under a new inter-agency agreement authorized by 1982 legislation.
Some of the special operations conducted by Air Force Reserve aircrews in 1983 foreshadowed the essence of the component's mission: wartime augmentation of the active force. These were the evacuation of Grenada and the airlift of wounded U.S. Marines from Lebanon. An Air Force Reserve C—141 crew brought back the first American evacuees from Grenada to Charleston AFB, S.C. Other Reserve crews and augmentees flying with active duty Military Airlift Command crews completed the airlift, returning seven hundred and nine U.S. and foreign students.
The force received a more grim reminder of its raison d'etre in October when associate aircrews and aeromedical teams flew six strategic airlift missions evacuating wounded U.S. Marines after the destruction of their Beirut headquarters.
The 907th Tactical Airlift Group at Rickenbacker Air National Guard Base, Ohio, provided the Air Force with its only aerial spray capability. The mission later transferred to the 910th Airlift Wing, Youngstown-Warren Regional Airport Reserve Station, Ohio. The unit sprayed millions of acres annually for weed control as well as fighting outbreaks of moths, beetles, mosquitoes, and other pests. It helped put down infestations of encephalitis-bearing mosquitoes in Minnesota in 1983 and grasshoppers in Idaho in 1985. The 815th Weather Reconnaissance Squadron, Kessler Air Force Base, Mississippi, tracked hurricanes eventually become the Air Force’s only unit dedicated to this mission.
The Air Force Reserve and Strategic Air Command expanded the associate program, establishing KC-10 associate units at Barksdale Air Force Base, Louisiana, March Air Force Base, California, and Seymour Johnson Air Force Base, North Carolina. The Air Force Reserve accepted, on a unit equipped basis, its first C-5 at Kelly Air Force Base, Texas, in 1985 and its first C-141 at Andrews Air Force Base, Maryland, one year later. In 1987, the Reserve added another C-5 equipped unit at Westover Air Force Base, Massachusetts.
The non-flying and support unit program expanded as well. Reserve contingency hospitals appeared at Lackland Air Force Base Texas; Travis Air Force Base, California, and Scott Air Force Base, Illinois, while aerial port and maintenance units were activated in Hawaii and Guam. The Reserve established electronic security squadrons at Brooks Air Force Base, Texas, and Offutt Air Force Base, Nebraska, and a military training squadron at Lackland Air Force Base, Texas. Reserve engineering and service units evolved from an immobile base support force to mobile combat and service units.
Two Reserve F-4 crews from the 89th Tactical Fighter Squadron, Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, Ohio, intercepted two Soviet Bear bombers over the Atlantic Ocean in September 1987, a first for Reservists. Six months later, a Reserve aircrew from the 459th Military Airlift Wing, Andrews Air Force Base, Maryland, landed the first C-141 at Palmerola Air Base, Honduras, during a jointservice exercise.
Other Reserve C-130s equipped with specialized airborne firefighting systems responded to wild fires across the United States. Reserve C-130s provided humanitarian airlift throughout western hemisphere, while a Reserve C-141 flew tents to Soviet Armenia following a devastating earthquake there in 1988. During the decade, Reservists also responded to natural disasters in Central and South America and Hurricane Hugo and the California earthquake in 1989.
In May 1989, during Operation Nimrod Dancer, Reserve C-141s and C-5s moved troops and
equipment to Panama as tensions increased there. Seven months later. Reservists participated in Just Cause, the intervention in Panama that ousted Manuel Noriega. Air Force Reserve crews flew more than 1,500 hours and 455 transport and air refueling sorties, while AC-130 gunships flew 29 sorties and fired more than 7,000 rounds of ammunition.
Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait on 2 August 1990 offered the United States Air Force the opportunity to evaluate the results of its twenty-year commitment to the Total Force. By the summer of 1990, the Air Force Reserve had attained a high state of readiness. Most units met or exceeded manning goals, and unit personnel were fully trained and combat ready, according to gaining major command-established standards. Flying units were equipped with a variety of modem, first-line combat-ready weapon systems, including A-10s, C-5s, C-130s, C-141s, F-16s and KC-135s. Headquarters Air Force Reserve at Robins Air Force Base and its three subordinate numbered air forces (Fourth at McClellan Air Force Base, California; Tenth at Bergstrom Air Force Base, Texas; and Fourteenth at Dobbins Air Force Base, Georgia) oversaw the operation of 21 wings, 36 groups, and 335 squadrons, 58 of which were flying squadrons.
These Reserve units and personnel contributed significantly to the Air Force units available for deployment to the Persian Gulf. The Volunteer Phase as the United States began marshaling its forces for the operation that became known as Desert Shield, Headquarters
AFRES took preliminary steps to ascertain what level of support flic Air Force Reserve could
what circumstances. Unit commanders asked during the August 1990 unit training assemblies, which of their personnel might be available to serve as volunteers if they were needed during the crisis.
Units alooked closely at the state of readiness of their equipment and personnel to deploy on short notice if they were mobilized. Initial calls for volunteers came soon thereafter, and Reservists responded in large numbers. By 20 August more than 15,300, or about 22 percent of all Air Force Reservists, had volunteered to serve. Associate operations and maintenance personnel were among the first Reservists to become actively involved in the crisis. Air Reserve Technicians assigned to Military Airlift Command gained associate strategic airlift units at Travis and Norton Air Force Bases in California, McChord Air Force Base, Washington, Charleston Air Force Base, South Carolina, Dover Air Force Base, Delaware, and McGuire Air Force Base, New Jersey, joined their active duty counterparts at these bases. The first Reservists to reach the theater were members of a C-141 crew that landed in Saudi Arabia the morning of 8 August. Reservists supported the airlift flow that moved the first American units into the theater, and they remained in fire forefront of the deployment effort as it unfolded. At Westover Air Force Base, Massachusetts, Reservists assigned to the 439th Military Airlift Wing established a staging base to support flights to and from Europe and Southwest Asia.
Air Force Reserve KC-135Es with volunteer crews and support personnel, built around a cadre from the 940th Air Refueling Wing, Mather AFB, California, formed part of a composite tanker force employed to die theater on 11 August. A few days later, an Air Force Reserve C-130 unit formal around the 94th Tactical Airlift Wing, Dobbins Air Force Base, Georgia, staffed completely by volunteers from several Reserve units, left American bases for the theater, although this force spent a few days in the Unital Kingdom before it reached the Gulf. A second group of Reserve C-130s, drawn largely from the 440 Tactical Airlift Wing, Genera! Mitchell International Airport, Wisconsin, replaced the initial package in mid-September. By 22 August, Reserve volunteers had logged more than 4,300 flying hours and had
moved 7 million Tons of cargo and 8,150 passengers to the theater.
The effort was not without its costs. On 29 August, a C-5 flown by an all-Reserve, all-volunteer crew from the 68th Military Airlift Squadron of the 433d Military Airlift Wing, Kelly Air Force Base, Texas, crashed on takeoff from Ramstein Air Base, Germany. The aircraft carrying medical supplies and other equipment to the Gulf, had seventeen men and women on board. Thirteen died, four were injured. Ten of the seventeen were Reservists.
Initial Call-Ups Although many reservists served as volunteers throughout the war, the Department of Defense soon realized that it needed the authority to recall portions of its reserve components to support the rapidly expanding commitment of forces in the Persian Gulf. On 22 August 1990, President Bush authorized the callup of 200,000 Reservists for 90 days under the authority of Title 10 United Slates Code, Section 678b. The next day Secretary of Defense Richard B. Cheney granted the Air Force authority to call up 14,500 members of the selected reserve, either those assigned to the unit program or Individual Mobilization Augmentees.
This decision, the first significant, conflict-related call-up of the Reserve component since 1968, marked the beginning of a process that would eventually see more than 20,000 Air Force Reservists called to active duty. Reserve C-5 and C-141 units, both associate and those equipped with aircraft of their own, were among the first called, and further call-ups through late October focused on strategic airlift units. The first C-130 tactical airlift units were called up for deployment in early October. These soon took the place of the volunteer C-130 unit in the theater.
The terms of the recall would eventually change twice before the war ended. On 13 November 1990, the President extended the recall from 90 to 180 days. Two months later on 19 January 1991, President Bush declared a national emergency and ordered the partial mobilization of the Ready Reserve for up to twelve months, an act that affected 360,000 personnel in all services. Secretary Cheney authorized the Air Force to mobilize 52,000 of its personnel (although it never called that number). He also directed all units and personnel previously recalled or serving as volunteers be switched to partial mobilization status.
While attention focused on the flying units and their maintenance personnel, thousands of other Reservists in all functional areas supported Desert Shield from bases in the United States, Europe, the Middle East, and the Gulf. Firefighters, security police, aerial personnel, supply, transportation, and administrative specialists, civil engineers, cooks, doctors, lawyers, chaplains, and others were involved. They served at their home stations, at other bases left short of personnel when active duly forces deployed, at staging bases throughout the world, where they augmented facilities over-burdened by the flow of personnel and equipment, and in the theater of operations itself. In percentage terms, Reserve medical personnel were among the most heavily involved. In expectation of massive casualties that fortunately never came, all Air Force Reserve medical units, and virtually all of their assignal personnel were eventually called to active duty. In late November, the Air Force Reserve’s first and, as it turned out, only tactical fighter unit to be recalled was alerted for call-up. The 706th Tactical Fighter Squadron of the 926th Tactical Fighter Group, an A-10 unit stationed at Naval Air Station New Orleans, Louisiana, deployed to Saudi Arabia in early January.
In early December, the 439th Military Airlift Wing was activated at home station, Westover AFB, Massachusetts. Wing personnel had been operating Lite base as a east coast staging facility since 17 August, the recall brought all unit personnel to duty to support operations at the base the last and largest block of recalls came in early January, when about 7,000 Reservists received orders. By about 1 February 1991, there were more than 17,500 on active duty. About 3,800 were officers, 13,700 enlisted personnel. Approximately 1,800 were Air Reserve Technicians, 1,300 were Individual Mobilization Augmentees, and more than 500 were members of the Individual Ready Reserve. More than 7,800 were in medical specialties.
The on-set of fighting in mid-January found Air Force Reserve units in action throughout the theater. The strategic airlift forces continued to shuttle personnel and equipment into Europe and to bases in the Gulf. Tactical airlift forces played a major role in the redeployment of forces in northern Saudi Arabia, as commanders set up what became the dramatic left hook into Iraq. The A-10s, operating from bases close to the front lines, attacked the full range of ground targets, including Iraqi Scud missiles. Reserve AC-130 and HH-3E helicopters also support special operations and search and rescue missions. In combat. Reservists claimed their share of noteworthy firsts during the war.
In three months from January through March 1991, no Air Force Reserve aircraft were lost during the war. Nor were any Reservists killed in combat. The mobilization reached its peak on 12 March 1991, with almost 23,500 Air Force Reservists on duty. The Department of Defense authorized the gaining major command commanders to demobilize Reservists, consistent with military requirements, on 8 March 1991.
Most Reservists had been demobilized by late June, but a handful remained on active duty through August. The Air Force Reserve in the 1990s the end of the war did not see the end of Air Force Reserve activity in Europe or the Gulf. Provide Comfort, the effort to deliver relief
supplies to Kurdish refugees in southern Turkey and northern Iraq, began on 7 April, supported by Reservists. Arc Wind, the use of Reserve C-130s to move returning personnel from East Coast bases to their home stations, also began at about that time.
The Air Force Reserve entered the space program with the activation of the 7th Space Operations Squadron at Falcon AFB, Colorado, 1 Jan 1993.
The Air Force Reserve's associate units had the "(Associate)" dropped from their unit designation on 1 October 1994, although there was no change in the way the units were organized or operated related to this action.
Air Reserve Technician (ART)
A full-time AFRC civil service employee assigned to an Associate unit, and a member of the Air Force Reserve with a Reserve assignment on the unit manpower document (UMD) of the Reserve Associate unit. The primary duties of the ART are to maintain a full-time unit management structure, provide support to the peacetime utilization rate, and to train other assigned Reserve personnel, all of which are to ensure unit readiness and productivity.
Traditional Reservist (TR)
Non-ART member of the Air Force Reserve, available for active duty service if mobilized.
Civil Service Employee
A civilian employee (non-ART) of the Air Force Reservenunit who is not a traditional reservist and is not subject to mobilization with the Reserve associate unit.
Availability
A period of time determined by reservists during which they may be absent from their civilian occupation and present for training with the Reserve associate unit. All training activities (including AMC tasked tanker/airlift missions) must be planned to ensure return to home base within the allotted time.
Activation
The process of placing members of the selected reserves on active duty. Activation includes all forms of mobilization and service under the Presidential Selected Reserve Call-up as well as consensual, or voluntary, service under 10 U.S.C. 12301 (formerly 672d), generally referred to as volunteerism. The term non-mobilized is understood to be the opposite of activated; i.e., peace time duty or training in the form of inactive duty for training, annual tours, additional flying training periods or proficiency training and school tours.
Associate
The Reserve associate concept establishes Reserve units, without unit aircraft or equipment, collocated with active units. These units share aircraft, equipment, vehicles, and other facilities of the active unit. They are composed of traditional reservists, civil service employees, and ARTs.
The Air Force Reserve's associate units had the "(Associate)" dropped from their unit designation on 1 October 1994, although there was no change in the way the units were organized or operated related to this action.
The Air Force Reserve is a reserve component of the Air Force created by Congress to provide a reserve for active duty. It consists of the members of the officers' section of the Air Force Reserve and of the enlisted section of the Air Force Reserve. It includes all reserves of the Air Force who are not members of the Air National Guard.
The purpose of the Air Force Reserve is to provide trained units and qualified persons available for active duty in the United States Air Force, in time of war or national emergency, and at such other times as the national security may require, to fill the needs of the armed forces whenever more units and persons are needed than are in the regular components.
Whenever Congress determines that more organizations are needed for the national security than are in the regular components of the Air Force, components of the Air Force Reserves shall be ordered to active duty and retained as long as needed
The Organized Reserves consist of the Officers’ Reserve Corps, the Enlisted Reserve Corps, and the Organized Reserve Units. They include troops of all branches necessary to supplement the Regular Army and National Guard in order to complete the first line of defense in a mobilization of the Army of the United States. In time of peace, they are a potential, rather than an actual fighting force. The peace establishment is capable of rapid expansion by the reception of trained and untrained men but will require a period of training in mobilization areas before becoming available for combat operations. The Officers’ Reserve Corps is composed of citizens who voluntarily accept commissions in as officers of all grades. It provides the great mass of officers required for war. In time of a national emergency expressly declared by Congress, the President may order reserve officers to active duty for any period of time. The Enlisted Reserve Corps is composed of persons voluntarily enlisted for service in this corps. Members of the Enlisted Reserve Corps may be placed on active duty in the same manner as are members of the Officers’ Reserve corps.
History of the Air Force Reserve
The United States Air Force Reserve traces its origins to June 1916 when the National Defense Act strengthened the Aviation Section of the Signal Corps and authorized a reserve corps of 2,300 officers and men. The first organized air reserve unit, designated the First Reserve Aero Squadron, was formed in May 1917, and was ordered to active military service soon after the United States entered World War I. The major contribution the reserves made to the Air Service war effort was the approximately 10,000 pilots who graduated from the civilian and military flying schools and went into the service rated as Reserve Military Aviators.
the Air Corps Reserve almost slipped into oblivion after World War I. It Suffered the same benign neglect that afflicted the active Army Air Corps and the Air Service before it. The program was sketchy; money and equipment were scarce. Nevertheless, due in large measure to the agitation of such groups as the Reserve Officers Association and the Air Reserve Association, Congress eventually funded Army Air Corps modernization and the reservists received fallout benefits.
Between the World Wars the Organized Reserve units were composed of officers of the Officers’ Reserve Corps, enlisted men of the Enlisted Reserve Corps, supplemented by a small cadre of officers and enlisted men of the Regular Army. In peace time, Organized Reserve units were maintained as cadres, with a war strength complement of officers and a limited number of noncommissioned officers. This personnel constituted the nucleus of the war time unit. This was primarily because these units were generally located on or near Army air fields or Organized Reserve airdromes and had easy access to army aircraft. Many of these locations also happened to be located near cities that were air hubs for major U.S. airlines. This was significant because many airline pilots were also Reserve officers. Regular units could make their equipment and facilities available to the Reservists to support their training.
Organized Reserve squadrons were a mixed bag. Like the Regular Army Inactive units, the most active were those squadrons that were lucky enough to be based at an Army airfield or at a Reserve airdrome. Reserve squadrons that were located at or near Regular Army airfields were authorized the use of the aircraft from Regular Army squadrons to maintain flying proficiency. The Organized Reserve squadrons in these situations generally held their Inactive Training Period meetings and summer training at those airfields as well. A small number of Reserve units were assigned Army aircraft that were based at their local airports. These units were typically allocated only about four to six planes and they were usually a mixture of types, mostly trainers and obsolete observation planes. There were only a handful of these units, usually only two or three per corps area. Other squadrons that were collocated at the same airfield were lucky as well because the pilots of those squadrons could freely use the owning squadron’s aircraft based at the airport. Since there were few Reserve enlisted personnel in these squadrons, the maintenance of these aircraft was conducted by a small Regular Army air corps detachment assigned to the field or the Reserve airdrome.
Functional organizations were ordered to camp as units; the personnel of pool units were usually ordered to camp as individuals and were attached for training to the functional units. These squadrons had a variety of missions which they performed to support the operations of other organizations or the operation of the air corps’ training base.
A number of the Regular Army Inactive units were organized with Reserve personnel, as were many of the Organized Reserve units. None appear to have been functional units in the Inactive Training Period and only ten were known to have attended a summer camp as a unit. Most likely, the personnel assigned to the initiated Regular Army Inactive and Organized Reserve organizations trained as individuals with other units both at camp and during the Inactive Training Period. None of these units are connected to Pursuit or Fighter units with the same numbers that were active in WW II.
Some Organized Reserve squadrons were functional units but did not have the luxury of having assigned planes or Regular Army aircraft based nearby. These units were functional only because of the assigned personnel made efforts to conduct training meetings with the sparse resources at hand, which occasionally included privately-owned aircraft. These units’ Regular Army instructors were also able to arrange for Army aircraft to be flown into a local airfield for weekend training events, but this was uncommon. A sizable number of Organized Reserve squadrons were pool units made of up geographically dispersed members. These units were occasionally ordered to summer training, but usually their personnel attended camps as individuals attached to other units.
In addition to the mostly trainers, obsolete observation planes and civilian aircraft, OR organizations were also allocated observation balloons. These Lighter Than Air (LTA) units were initiated n the interwar period, but substantial numbers were never assigned any personnel. Many others were demobilized in 1927 and 1928, and by the following year, many of those that had been initiated had now been inactivated. Most of those personnel appear to have been transferred to other Reserve organizations, but not necessarily air corps units. The most active were those units located at or near installations where Regular Army LTA units were based.
Most of the Reserve LTA units were typically located in small communities and cities too far away from active units to enjoy such benefits. Additionally, the Reserve companies typically consisted of only four to eight officers whose residences were often geographically dispersed making it difficult to frequently assemble the unit during the Inactive Training Period. Thus, the large majority of the Reserve organizations were most probably pool units. Moreover, less than thirty of these units were ever ordered to summer training as units. In 1933, a large number of additional Reserve LTA units were demobilized as the Army struggled to find the right mix of units.
On the eve of World War II, there were 1,500 Army Air Corps reserve pilots on extended active duty. These, plus 1,300 non-rated officers and 400 enlisted men, provided the Army Air Corps a small but skilled reserve augmentation in the critical early days of the war. By late 1940, there were 2,300 Air Corps reserve officers on active duty. At the end of 1941, the United States having now entered World War 11, there were more than 19,400 Reservists on active duty with the Army Air Corps, including 9,257 pilots.
On 1 July 1946, the Reserve’s first postwar training flight took place at Memphis, Tennessee. The post-World War II Air Reserve program, directed by the Air Defense Command, took the form of a “flying club” with no objective beyond offering pilot proficiency training in World War Il-vintage trainers and P-5Is. United States Air Force Reserve, established on 14 April 1948, struggled with a continued shortage of both funds and modern aircraft.
The Air Force acknowledged the weaknesses that plagued its reserve and worked to devise a more realistic and effective program. It took direct intervention from President Harry S Truman, in Executive Order 10007 (15 October 1948), to bring matters to a head. In response to this directive, the Air Force vested oversight of the Air Force Reserve program in the Air Staff-level Office of the Special Assistant to the Chief of Staff for Reserve Forces, headed by Lt Gen Elwood R Quesada. The Air Force established, on 1 December 1948, the Continental Air Command (CONAC) to manage the Reserve field program.
General Quesada and the CONAC staff created a five-part Reserve program that included mobilization augmentees, corollary units, Table of Organization and Equipment (T/O&E) units, Volunteer Air Reserve training units, and a series of extension courses open to all Reservists. Planners initially believed that the first two categories were more important, but the T/O&E units soon became the head of the reorganized and revitalized Air Force Reserve. This force included five light bombardment and twenty troop carrier wings. Air Force Reservists now trained, for the first time, in tactical units designated for mobilization on short notice during crises.
In June 1949, the Continental Air Command activated 152 corollary units for itself and the other major commands. Corollary units consisting of Air Force Reservists, formed in the vicinity of Regular Air Force bases, were trained and administered by Regular Air Force units of the same type, and used Regular Air Force equipment. The service was also developing a plan to use reservists on extended active duty to serve as instructors for reserve units and to staff the training center. These included light and medium bombardment, all-weather fighter, troop carrier, reconnaissance, vehicle repair, communications, pilot training, technical training, bombardment training, air weather, air transport, airways, and air communications and air rescue units. The corollary training program progressed slowly. A superficial logic to the corollary unit concept appealed to government officials responsible for designing reserve programs. It just seemed so obvious that the best and simplest way to train a reservist was to mix him in with an existing regular force unit and let him go at it.
The objective of the corollary unit was to develop sufficient individual and unit proficiency to permit employment of the corollary unit personnel immediately upon mobilization as individual replacements or augmentees or as an integral unit. The avowed purpose of the program was to keep assigned personnel abreast of new policies, procedures, weapons, and techniques of the Air Force and to maintain their military proficiency.
The Air Force Reserve training center program was a continuation of the old center program, but the number of centers was reduced from 41 to 23, and they would provide the personnel, equipment, facilities, and manpower to administer and train 25 attached Air Force Reserve combat wings: Perhaps the principal difference between the Volunteer Air Reserve training units and the composite units they replaced was that the new program was set in an organizational framework of wings, groups, squadrons, and flights.
The Continental Air Command succeeded relatively well in building the combat wing and the Volunteer Air Reserve training programs for which it was responsible. It activated and equipped the twenty-five reserve combat wings at its flying centers in short order, and by the end of fiscal year 1950 the units were progressing acceptably toward operational readiness. The command even managed to enroll many thousands in the far-flung Volunteer Air Reserve program, despite its skimpy attractions.
The corollary units were beset with sundry problems, and the Air Force never really defined the objective of the mobilization assignee program during fiscal year 1950. The entire, new Air Force Reserve program was to become effective on July 1, but on May 6, 1949, General McConnell directed Headquarters Continental Air Command to implement immediately that phase of the new program pertaining to the training of Air Force Reserve wings at the twenty three Air Force Reserve training centers. The reserve units included twenty troop carrier wings equipped with C-47s or C-46s and five light bombardment wings flying B-26s.
These missions were selected for the Air Force Reserve because the Air National Guard was already primarily a fighter force, and the Air Force did not have the installations, materiel, nor technical personnel to support medium and heavy bomber units in the Air Force Reserve. The reserve wings would differ from active force wings in that air installation, food services, air police, and motor vehicle squadrons were omitted from their organizations, and all units were limited to 25 percent of the normally required personnel and equipment.
Although the 1950 Air Force Reserve Program assigned a higher training priority to the corollary units, in practice the equipped reserve wings assigned to training centers fared better. The training centers existed primarily to train members of reserve units, but the Regular Air Force units supporting corollary units had operational missions that came first. Each corollary unit was to train one weekend per month and have a two-week tour of active duty each year. This sacrificed the regular unit’s effectiveness, which the Chief of Staff had accepted, but it was a fine point as to how much its combat efficiency could safely be dissipated in training duties.
The active force’s tactical flying units were not well suited to conduct corollary unit training from the standpoint of the reserve. Units of such commands as the Air Training Command and the Military Air Transport Service had relatively stable locations, but tactical combat units were mobile by nature. The tactical forces frequently deployed from one station to another as strategic or tactical considerations dictated. They often participated in exercises and maneuvers, with a resultant interruption in reserve training.
Reservists, bound to their communities as citizens, could not accompany the deploying units for indeterminate or long training periods. This instability in corollary unit training was conducive neither to the development of proficiency nor to the maintenance of reservist good will. At the end of the first year of the new program, the Air Force Reserve corollary program included about 15,000 members who comprised an individual resource that the Air Force ultimately used. In November 1949, after five months’ experience with the program, the Headquarters Continental Air Command staff concluded that the tactical squadrons of combat wings should not be burdened with reserve corollary training responsibilities.
In December 1950, Lt. Gen. Ennis C. Whitehead, Commander of Continental Air Command identified a number of weaknesses of the Air Force Reserve program to the Chief of Staff of the Air Force. He asserted that the basic weaknesses of the reserve program stemmed from the lack of a realistic reserve forces troop basis and an Air Force mobilization plan. Until they were developed, he asserted, the Air Force was working in the dark. Lacking a firm mobilization requirements base, officials responsible for the reserve program could not define the necessary training. In his judgment, this single deficiency contributed most to the difficulties of the reserve forces. Because the Air Force lacked proper plans for its reserve forces, its concepts for the organization and development of reserve forces were faulty. General Whitehead dismissed the corollary flying units as unsuccessful.
He deemed supervision of the existing reserve program as inadequate and proposed several innovations in structure including the establishment of geographical district headquarters, intended to get management closer to the reservists. He asserted that the Air Force had failed to invest adequate resources in the reserve programs and had received commensurate value in return. He enumerated other problems, but he stressed inadequate planning, the failure to establish requirements, the need to spend money, and the need to promote a sense of mutual interdependence and understanding between the regular and reserve component.
When the Korean War erupted in 1950, the Air Force Reserve consisted of more than 315,800 non-drilling and nearly 58,500 drilling Reservists in combat sustaining units, namely 20 troop carrier wings outfitted with C-46s and C-47s and later C-119s, and five light bombardment wings of B-26s. Between July 1950 and June 1953, the Air Force mobilized nearly 147,000 Air Force Reservists to active service for periods from one to three years. Five Air Force Reserve units remained on active service while another 15 units were called up to replace and fill out active units.
Air Force Reserve made significant contributions to the active force during the Korean War, but the reserve’s wartime service decimated its ranks, disrupted its organization, and exposed structural and conceptual weaknesses. As a result, the Air Force spent several years after the war rebuilding its Reserve force and redefining the Reserve concept.
Three major categories within the Reserve components were established on 1 Jan 1953; the Ready Reserve, the Standby Reserve, and the Retired Reserve.
Devised during the Korean War, a new long range plan for the Reserve Forces implemented in fiscal 1953 provided for an Air Force Reserve program which included fighter-bomber, troop carrier, tactical reconnaissance, and pilot training wings. By May 1954, the jet fighter had reached the Air Force Reserve, and the fighter-bomber wings had T-33s and F-80s assigned.
Between 1952 and 1955, Congress passed three laws that had a significant impact on the reserve program. The Armed Forces Reserve Act of 1952 standardized pay and training groups and established the Ready, Standby, and Retired mobilization categories; the Reserve Officers Personnel Act of 1954 established a permanent system of promotions for Reservists; the Reserve Forces Act of 1955 doubled the size of the Ready upon organization they reported to the obligation and authorized the recruitment of personnel who had no prior military sendee.
In January 1955 the Chief of Staff of the Air Force announced a firm mobilization requirement for fifty-one Air Reserve Forces wings, including twenty-four in the Air Force Reserve. Consequently, the pilot training wings were replaced by tactical units and the tactical reconnaissance wings by tactical bombardment wings. At the end of fiscal 1955, the Air Force Reserve flying unit program consisted of twenty-four wings—thirteen troop carrier, nine fighter-bomber, and two tactical bombardment. Two years later the first three of an eventual five air rescue squadrons were activated, the jets kept coming, and the force's inventory included C-119s, C-46s, SA-16s, F-80s, F-84s, and F-86s.
In the mid-1950s, Air Force Reserve flying units began to conduct peacetime missions for
the Air Force. Normal peacetime troops carrier wing training generated airlift tire active force used to help meet its own commitments. In 1956, Reserve troops carrier wings moved US Coast Guard equipment from New York to several sites in the Caribbean during Operation 16-Ton. In 1957, Reserve transport units began Operation Swiftlift, flying airlift missions in support of Tactical Air Command, and in 1958 they inaugurated Operation Ready Swap, transporting equipment between Air Material Command bases. They were also flying humanitarian airlift missions and dropping paratroopers for the Army.
In 1957, the Air Force reduced the Air Force Reserve flying unit program to forty-five troop carrier and five air rescue squadrons. The Air National Guard assumed the fighter mission when the Air Force found that Guard and Reserve fighter squadrons could not fulfill tire air-to-air mission and the Tactical Air Command could not absorb the fighters as an air-to-ground support force. These operational considerations, coupled with economics imposed by the Eisenhower administration, drove a reduction in the number of Reserve units.
By January 1958, the component had been reduced to forty-five troop carrier squadrons and five air rescue squadrons, and it had lost the fighter mission to the Air National Guard. Also in January 1958, the air reserve technician program was implemented in the Air Force Reserve. This program improved the readiness of Air Force Reserve units by providing a permanent cadre of civilian technicians who were also key reservists in their units ready for instant mobilization. When the first two technicians were sworn in in January 1958, the Air Force Reserve passed a major milepost on the way to operational readiness. As the technicians were phased in over the next two years, the air reserve flying centers to which the Reserve units had been assigned were discontinued.
In 1960 the Air Force reorganized the management structure of the Air Force Reserve and redirected its individual training programs. The gaining commands took over the supervision of training and the inspection of Air Force Reserve units. In a major redirection of the individual training program, the classroom and project training of the air reserve centers and their reserve groups and squadrons gave way for the most part to a new program of post-strike recovery and support units and bases, a program which became extremely popular for most of the reservists involved. Unfortunately, the Office of the Secretary of Defense and government auditors did not share their enthusiasm, and by 1965 the program was a memory. In the meantime, the Continental Air Command's numbered air forces were discontinued and replaced by Air Force Reserve regions, eighty-five percent of whose one hundred-man staffs were reservists. This gave the reservist his first real role in the management of reserve programs above the unit level.
It was as a mobilization force that the post-Korean Air Force Reserve was intended, and parts of it mobilized on four different occasions in the 1960's as well as once in the first year of the new decade. When new tensions in Berlin stiffened Cold War attitudes in 1961, President John F. Kennedy ordered a number of Air Force Reserve C-124 troop carrier units to active duty to augment the airlift force should it be required in Europe. Recalled on October 1, 1961 and released on August 27, 1962. The units were assigned to Tactical Air Command and conducted normal troop carrier training and operations out of their home stations. Meanwhile, during October and November 1961, approximately one hundred officers and men of the five Air Force Reserve air rescue squadrons served voluntary sixty-day tours to provide rescue coverage for the deployment of mobilized Air National Guard fighter aircraft to Europe.
On October 28, 1962, just two months after the release of the C-124 units, one C-123 and seven C-119 troop carrier wings and six aerial port squadrons were recalled to active duty, for a month as it turned out, as a result of the discovery of Russian offensive missiles in Cuba. The units operated out of their home stations, sending planes and crews to support the buildup of forward operating locations in the Southeast and to prepare for a possible airborne assault.
In addition to the 14,000 reservists mobilized with units, members of the Air Force Reserve's recovery units and support units utilized more than five thousand man-days in voluntary support of the major commands which dispersed aircraft during the crisis. Also, reservists assigned to the Air Reserve sectors and air terminal squadrons utilized 190 man-days. Finally, as the crisis abated, 290 pilots, 64 navigators, and 88 flight engineers of the recalled troop carrier units voluntarily
remained on active duty an additional fifteen days to help return dispersed Air Force units to their pre-crisis posture.
Commander of MAC, General Howell M. Estes, Jr., directed in January 1966 a complete reappraisal of the command’s future Reserve needs. While the main focus was to be on strategic airlift, the full range of MAC’S many mission areas was to be included. Four key points of guidance were followed: that augmentation would be primarily by organized units, these units would be complementary to and compatible with the force to be augmented, the units’ organizational structure and concept of operation should permit flexible response at all levels of activity rather than only under general war mobilization, and that the units’ operation must be cost effective. Reservists fly the same missions, establish autonomous Reserve units, and maintain the same professional standards as their active-duty counterparts.
The Air Force called on the Air Force Reserve to participate in the Vietnam War effort. Reservists voluntarily provided direct and indirect support with few mobilizations. Needing more strategic airlift into the Vietnam Theater, the Air Force Reserve responded by flying C-124 missions as part of their inactive duty, annual two-week training, and an additional 36 days of inactive duty days. Air Force Reserve rescue and recovery, intelligence and medical specialists, aerial porters, maintainers, lawyers, and chaplains comprised the range of support provided.
The Continental Air Command coordinated two morale airlifts in which the Air Force Reserve and the Air National Guard were the primary carriers. The first occurred late in 1965. Dubbed Operation Christmas Star, it involved the delivery of several hundreds of tons of Christmas packages to U.S. troops in Southeast Asia, Europe, and Alaska. Then, beginning in July 1966, Continental Air Command coordinated Combat Leave, occasioned by a labor strike against five major airlines. With thousands of military travelers affected, especially those trying to get back from Vietnam on leave, the airlift transported 122,863 service men during its sixty-five day duration.
The Air Force Reserve management structure changed with the passage of Public Law 90-168, "The Reserve Bill of Rights and Vitalization Act," in December 1967. Enacted by congressmen opposed to a Defense Department attempt to merge reserve components of the U.S. Army, the new law seemed to guarantee the integrity of reserve components.
The Air Force initiated in 1968 the associate concept whereby Air Force Reserve personnel would associate with an active duty unit equipped with new C-141s or C-9s, flying and performing maintenance together. The Air Force desired more augmentation from the Air Force Reserve and yet unable to procure enough new C-141s.
On January 15, 1968, the Continental Air Command organized the 944th Military Airlift Group (Provisional) as an associate group at Norton AFB with Col. Richard P. McFarland as commander. Under the provisions of a Continental Air Command programming plan and a Military Airlift Command program action directive, the associate program test got under way. In the absence of an overall Air Force regulation or manual to govern the associate program, ad hoc local agreements broke new ground in the increasingly complex arrangements between the two commands and their subordinate units. The commander of the 63d Military Airlift Wing, the active force parent wing, assumed operational control over the group during unit training assemblies and active duty training periods as well as aircrew members any time they integrated into the active wing for training purpose.
Acceptance of what would become the Air Force Reserve airlift associate program was neither rapid nor unanimous. Recalling the failure of the original corollary program of 1949-1951, Continental Air Command officials did not rush to embrace the new concept, and they influenced General Estes to rename the new venture as the associate program. Air Force Reservists and Air National Guardsmen expressed reservations about the associate concept as they learned their units would not own the new C-141s and C-5s but would merely contribute aircrews and maintenance talent to collocated active force units. The reservists believed the new program was nothing more than a glorified individual program and feared they would eventually lose their identity.
The Reserve Associate Unit is distinctly different from the typical Reserve flying unit. They do not possess their own organic aircraft but rather share aircraft, training equipment, aerospace ground equipment, facilities, and spares with the active duty wing. Augmentation by these Reserve Associate units will ensure full utilization of aircraft under full mobilization. The Reserve Associate Unit Air Reserve Technician (ART) maintenance complement is authorized manpower to train traditional reservists and to provide aircraft production capability in support of active duty and Reserve flying hour requirements.
The objective of the Air Force Reserve associate program is to provide trained personnel to be the initial and primary source of augmentation of the active forces in any emergency requiring rapid and sustaining expansion of the strategic airlift and air refueling capabilities. Additionally, the Air Force Reserve associate units perform peacetime missions as an adjunct to, or corollary of, training.AMC and AFRC, respectively, must ensure that the active duty host and Air Force Reserve associate units are indoctrinated and trained to achieve this objective.
The Reserve associate units use aircraft, training equipment, aerospace ground equipment, facilities, and spares with the active duty wings. Augmentation by these Reserve Associate units will ensure full utilization of AMC aircraft under full mobilization. The Reserve Associate Unit Air Reserve Technician (ART) maintenance complement is authorized manpower to train traditional reservists and to provide aircraft production capability in support of active duty and Reserve flying hour requirements.
In January 1968, after avoiding mobilizing Reserve Forces for more than three years, the Johnson administration responded in part to the Pueblo seizure by mobilizing Air Reserve and Naval Reserve forces. Two Air Force Reserve military airlift wings and five groups equipped with C-124s and an aerospace rescue and recovery squadron flying HC-97s were ordered to active military service on January 26th. On May 13th, to replace some specific active force shortages, a tactical airlift group minus some support elements, three aerial port squadrons, a medical service squadron, and an aeromedical evacuation squadron were recalled. All were released by June 1969.
There were three distinct modes in which the C-124 units operated during the mobilization. At times each operated out of its home station supporting the Military Airlift Command's world-wide mission. At other times, each participated in a provisional airlift squadron set up at RAF Mildenhall, England, from July 1968 to May 1969 to support the United States Air Forces in Europe. This freed an active duty C-130 wing for reassignment to Southeast Asia.
Shortly after the C-124s began plying their way between the MAC ports and Southeast Asia, the Air Force Reserve troop carrier and transport units, the C-119s and the C-123s, along with a few C-124s not committed to Southeast Asia, participated in the U.S. airlift operations in revolt-torn Dominican Republic. Having demonstrated their capability, the Air Force Reserve C-119s soon took over MAC's offshore routes in the Atlantic and Caribbean, freeing the airlift command's four-engine aircraft for direct support of the Southeast Asia requirement. In the seven years beginning in fiscal 1966, the C-119s conducted 3,648 offshore missions for MAC, flying 27,138 hours and carrying 8,418 tons of cargo and 3,155 passengers. Their support ended only when the C-119s left the inventory in March 1973.
Support of the Air Force's Southeast Asia mission was not the sole province of the Air Force Reserve flying units, for nonflying units and individuals contributed their share as well. Medics, engineers, aerial porters, intelligence experts, lawyers, chaplains, and all manner of other mobilization augmentees made significant, lasting, and often unrecorded contributions.
Later in 1968, on the recommendation of the first Chief, Maj. Gen. Tom E. Marchbanks, the Continental Air Command was replaced at Robins AFB, Ga., by Headquarters Air Force Reserve (AFRES), a separate operating agency commanded by another reservist, Maj. Gen. Rollin B. Moore, Jr. Forty percent of the staffs of each of the two new Reserve agencies were reservists, and the Air Force, especially after the second Chief, Maj. Gen. Homer I. Lewis, integrated himself as Chief of Air Force Reserve and Commander of AFRES gave them the chance to operate and run their own programs making the Air Force singularly distinctive among the military services.
In August 1970, Secretary of Defense Melvin R. Laird announced the Total Force Concept, a major reversal of policy whereby the reserve components became the initial source of augmentation of the active force rather than the draft. Three years later, the concept became policy as Secretary James R. Schlesinger proclaimed Total Force Policy as integrating the Active, Guard, and Reserve into a homogeneous whole. Consequently, reserve units had to meet the same readiness standards as the active force and the services had to assure, through equipping, facilities, training, and manning polices that they could.
Reequipped under Total Force as the active Force's manning decreased, the Air Force Reserve acquired new missions, and they were not always conducted in the traditional training by-product mode. Instead, many were directed and regularly scheduled. Thus, Air Force Reservists rotated EC-121s to Iceland to conduct the airborne early warning and control mission there.
Other missions included the Panama Canal rotation, aerial spray, forest fire retardation, aerial refueling, and weather reconnaissance missions which had to be conducted when needed, not necessarily when the reservist could conveniently train. Meanwhile, the airlift and rescue missions went routinely on. In March 1970, the Air Force Reserve’s two air postal and courier groups at Dobbins Air Force Base, Georgia, and Hamilton Air Force Base, California, were mobilized for a few days during a brief postal worker’s strike.
From 14 October to 15 November 1973, Air Force Reserve aircrews from six associate airlift wings participated in C-141 and C-5 flights carrying supplies to Israel during the Yom Kippur
War. Of 650 Reservists who volunteered, 286 aircrew members flew into the Middle East,
including 183 who made flights directly into Israel. The latter group included 24 all-Reserve
crews. At the same time, 1,495 Reserve crew members flew normal MAC missions, again
freeing active duty personnel for flights to the Middle East.
When Maj. Gen. William Lyon became the third Chief of Air Force Reserve in April 1975, the existence of the reserve regions as the intermediate management echelon was threatened by the budgetary axe. He not only defended their need, but he convinced the Air Force to upgrade them as numbered air forces, entities with which the active force was much more comfortable in dealing.
In 1976, Maj Gen William Lyon, third Chief of the Air Force Reserve, replaced the Air Force Reserve regions with numbered air forces oriented toward the gaining commands in an effort to improve Reserve unit readiness. The numbered air forces assumed their place in the chain of command and quickly played roles in supporting the Panama deployments and planning equipment conversions. The Reserve leadership tested its new chain of command and its command control procedures through the Redoubt series of exercises, where Reserve units demonstrated their ability to mobilize, deploy, and operate effectively. The exercises attracted close scrutiny from the gaining commands and the Air Staff, all of which were well-satisfied with what they saw. By late 1978, the Chief of Staff of the Air Force noted that the Air Force Reserve was no longer a “partner” of the Air Force, it was “part” of it.
Rules concerning Reservist availability changed in December 1980, when President Jimmy Carter signed Public Law 96-584 which, among other things, gave the President more flexibility in ordering Reservists to active duty, raising from 50,000 to 100,000, the number lie could recall for up to 90-days without a declaration of war or proclamation of a national emergency. The Air Force Reserve in the 1980s modernization continued throughout the 1980s. In addition to various C-130 transport models and special application variants, the Reserve aircraft inventory included F-4, A-10, and F-16 fighters, and CH-3E, HH-3E, and UH-1N helicopters.
In addition to being manned, the force was capable, as only new or converting units were not combat ready. One aspect of such readiness was the Air Force Reserve's role in supporting the Rapid Deployment Joint Task Force through its associate program. In December 1980 the Military Airlift Command and Headquarters AFRES agreed the Air Force Reserve would provide thirty-eight C-141 aircrews to support the task force. The crews had to be both airdrop and air refueling qualified and were required to sign statements of voluntary availability.
The nonflying and support unit program expanded as well. The aerial port units completed their expansion and realignment, the medical force put contingency hospitals into Lackland AFB, Tex, and Travis AFB, Calif., with detachments at several locations. Aerial port and maintenance units appeared in Guam and Hawaii as the component moved overseas. The force also acquired new missions, establishing electronic security squadrons at Brooks AFB, Tex, and Offutt AFB, Neb., and a military training squadron at Lackland AFB. Reflecting active force changes, the Reserve engineering and services forces evolved from an immobile base-support force to mobile, combat Prime BEEF and service units.
Air Force Reserve individuals and units continued to involve themselves in disaster relief and other humanitarian missions. Early in the period, Reserve chaplains participated in the Cuban refugee resettlement effort. In December 1979 an associate aircrew from the 349th Military Airlift Wing operated one of two C-5s that airlifted nine truck-mounted cranes and nine cargo trucks from Yokota AB, Japan, to Singapore from whence they were transported to Cambodia to support international relief efforts.
As befitted their mission, the Reserve rescue and recovery squadrons discharged a heavy commitment to lifesaving from 1980 through 1983 as they were credited with saving 291 lives while flying almost twelve hundred sorties. Some of their missions were beyond the norm. Three squadrons saved sixty-one lives following the eruption of Mount St. Helens in May 1980. One squadron supported the 1980 Winter Olympics in New York State.
In November 1980 aircrews of the 302d Special Operations Squadron, once a rescue squadron itself, deployed to Nellis AFB, Nev., rescued fifteen guests trapped on balconies of the blazing MGM Grand Hotel in Las Vegas, and the same unit annually airlifted food to Navajo Indians and hay to their livestock stranded by spring floods in Arizona. In 1982 and 1983 all the rescue squadrons supported the National aeronautical and Space Administration's space shuttle launches.
In June 1983, 439th Tactical Airlift Wing aircrews deployed on rotational duty in Central America flew disaster relief missions to Piera, Peru, airlifting 170 tons of food and medical supplies to the remote towns devasted by tropical rains which had fallen for nearly a month. C-130s from the 440th Tactical Airlift Wing on similar duty in April flew 220,000 pounds of relief cargo, primarily medical supplies and tents, to Popayan, Colombia, in earthquake relief operations.
An historically significant operation took place on August 14, 1983, when an Air Force Reserve C-130 from the 433d Tactical Airlift Wing cooperated with the United States Coast Guard in intercepting a surface vessel smuggling fifteen tons of marijuana into the United States. This marked the first such mission conducted under a new inter-agency agreement authorized by 1982 legislation.
Some of the special operations conducted by Air Force Reserve aircrews in 1983 foreshadowed the essence of the component's mission: wartime augmentation of the active force. These were the evacuation of Grenada and the airlift of wounded U.S. Marines from Lebanon. An Air Force Reserve C—141 crew brought back the first American evacuees from Grenada to Charleston AFB, S.C. Other Reserve crews and augmentees flying with active duty Military Airlift Command crews completed the airlift, returning seven hundred and nine U.S. and foreign students.
The force received a more grim reminder of its raison d'etre in October when associate aircrews and aeromedical teams flew six strategic airlift missions evacuating wounded U.S. Marines after the destruction of their Beirut headquarters.
The 907th Tactical Airlift Group at Rickenbacker Air National Guard Base, Ohio, provided the Air Force with its only aerial spray capability. The mission later transferred to the 910th Airlift Wing, Youngstown-Warren Regional Airport Reserve Station, Ohio. The unit sprayed millions of acres annually for weed control as well as fighting outbreaks of moths, beetles, mosquitoes, and other pests. It helped put down infestations of encephalitis-bearing mosquitoes in Minnesota in 1983 and grasshoppers in Idaho in 1985. The 815th Weather Reconnaissance Squadron, Kessler Air Force Base, Mississippi, tracked hurricanes eventually become the Air Force’s only unit dedicated to this mission.
The Air Force Reserve and Strategic Air Command expanded the associate program, establishing KC-10 associate units at Barksdale Air Force Base, Louisiana, March Air Force Base, California, and Seymour Johnson Air Force Base, North Carolina. The Air Force Reserve accepted, on a unit equipped basis, its first C-5 at Kelly Air Force Base, Texas, in 1985 and its first C-141 at Andrews Air Force Base, Maryland, one year later. In 1987, the Reserve added another C-5 equipped unit at Westover Air Force Base, Massachusetts.
The non-flying and support unit program expanded as well. Reserve contingency hospitals appeared at Lackland Air Force Base Texas; Travis Air Force Base, California, and Scott Air Force Base, Illinois, while aerial port and maintenance units were activated in Hawaii and Guam. The Reserve established electronic security squadrons at Brooks Air Force Base, Texas, and Offutt Air Force Base, Nebraska, and a military training squadron at Lackland Air Force Base, Texas. Reserve engineering and service units evolved from an immobile base support force to mobile combat and service units.
Two Reserve F-4 crews from the 89th Tactical Fighter Squadron, Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, Ohio, intercepted two Soviet Bear bombers over the Atlantic Ocean in September 1987, a first for Reservists. Six months later, a Reserve aircrew from the 459th Military Airlift Wing, Andrews Air Force Base, Maryland, landed the first C-141 at Palmerola Air Base, Honduras, during a jointservice exercise.
Other Reserve C-130s equipped with specialized airborne firefighting systems responded to wild fires across the United States. Reserve C-130s provided humanitarian airlift throughout western hemisphere, while a Reserve C-141 flew tents to Soviet Armenia following a devastating earthquake there in 1988. During the decade, Reservists also responded to natural disasters in Central and South America and Hurricane Hugo and the California earthquake in 1989.
In May 1989, during Operation Nimrod Dancer, Reserve C-141s and C-5s moved troops and
equipment to Panama as tensions increased there. Seven months later. Reservists participated in Just Cause, the intervention in Panama that ousted Manuel Noriega. Air Force Reserve crews flew more than 1,500 hours and 455 transport and air refueling sorties, while AC-130 gunships flew 29 sorties and fired more than 7,000 rounds of ammunition.
Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait on 2 August 1990 offered the United States Air Force the opportunity to evaluate the results of its twenty-year commitment to the Total Force. By the summer of 1990, the Air Force Reserve had attained a high state of readiness. Most units met or exceeded manning goals, and unit personnel were fully trained and combat ready, according to gaining major command-established standards. Flying units were equipped with a variety of modem, first-line combat-ready weapon systems, including A-10s, C-5s, C-130s, C-141s, F-16s and KC-135s. Headquarters Air Force Reserve at Robins Air Force Base and its three subordinate numbered air forces (Fourth at McClellan Air Force Base, California; Tenth at Bergstrom Air Force Base, Texas; and Fourteenth at Dobbins Air Force Base, Georgia) oversaw the operation of 21 wings, 36 groups, and 335 squadrons, 58 of which were flying squadrons.
These Reserve units and personnel contributed significantly to the Air Force units available for deployment to the Persian Gulf. The Volunteer Phase as the United States began marshaling its forces for the operation that became known as Desert Shield, Headquarters
AFRES took preliminary steps to ascertain what level of support flic Air Force Reserve could
what circumstances. Unit commanders asked during the August 1990 unit training assemblies, which of their personnel might be available to serve as volunteers if they were needed during the crisis.
Units alooked closely at the state of readiness of their equipment and personnel to deploy on short notice if they were mobilized. Initial calls for volunteers came soon thereafter, and Reservists responded in large numbers. By 20 August more than 15,300, or about 22 percent of all Air Force Reservists, had volunteered to serve. Associate operations and maintenance personnel were among the first Reservists to become actively involved in the crisis. Air Reserve Technicians assigned to Military Airlift Command gained associate strategic airlift units at Travis and Norton Air Force Bases in California, McChord Air Force Base, Washington, Charleston Air Force Base, South Carolina, Dover Air Force Base, Delaware, and McGuire Air Force Base, New Jersey, joined their active duty counterparts at these bases. The first Reservists to reach the theater were members of a C-141 crew that landed in Saudi Arabia the morning of 8 August. Reservists supported the airlift flow that moved the first American units into the theater, and they remained in fire forefront of the deployment effort as it unfolded. At Westover Air Force Base, Massachusetts, Reservists assigned to the 439th Military Airlift Wing established a staging base to support flights to and from Europe and Southwest Asia.
Air Force Reserve KC-135Es with volunteer crews and support personnel, built around a cadre from the 940th Air Refueling Wing, Mather AFB, California, formed part of a composite tanker force employed to die theater on 11 August. A few days later, an Air Force Reserve C-130 unit formal around the 94th Tactical Airlift Wing, Dobbins Air Force Base, Georgia, staffed completely by volunteers from several Reserve units, left American bases for the theater, although this force spent a few days in the Unital Kingdom before it reached the Gulf. A second group of Reserve C-130s, drawn largely from the 440 Tactical Airlift Wing, Genera! Mitchell International Airport, Wisconsin, replaced the initial package in mid-September. By 22 August, Reserve volunteers had logged more than 4,300 flying hours and had
moved 7 million Tons of cargo and 8,150 passengers to the theater.
The effort was not without its costs. On 29 August, a C-5 flown by an all-Reserve, all-volunteer crew from the 68th Military Airlift Squadron of the 433d Military Airlift Wing, Kelly Air Force Base, Texas, crashed on takeoff from Ramstein Air Base, Germany. The aircraft carrying medical supplies and other equipment to the Gulf, had seventeen men and women on board. Thirteen died, four were injured. Ten of the seventeen were Reservists.
Initial Call-Ups Although many reservists served as volunteers throughout the war, the Department of Defense soon realized that it needed the authority to recall portions of its reserve components to support the rapidly expanding commitment of forces in the Persian Gulf. On 22 August 1990, President Bush authorized the callup of 200,000 Reservists for 90 days under the authority of Title 10 United Slates Code, Section 678b. The next day Secretary of Defense Richard B. Cheney granted the Air Force authority to call up 14,500 members of the selected reserve, either those assigned to the unit program or Individual Mobilization Augmentees.
This decision, the first significant, conflict-related call-up of the Reserve component since 1968, marked the beginning of a process that would eventually see more than 20,000 Air Force Reservists called to active duty. Reserve C-5 and C-141 units, both associate and those equipped with aircraft of their own, were among the first called, and further call-ups through late October focused on strategic airlift units. The first C-130 tactical airlift units were called up for deployment in early October. These soon took the place of the volunteer C-130 unit in the theater.
The terms of the recall would eventually change twice before the war ended. On 13 November 1990, the President extended the recall from 90 to 180 days. Two months later on 19 January 1991, President Bush declared a national emergency and ordered the partial mobilization of the Ready Reserve for up to twelve months, an act that affected 360,000 personnel in all services. Secretary Cheney authorized the Air Force to mobilize 52,000 of its personnel (although it never called that number). He also directed all units and personnel previously recalled or serving as volunteers be switched to partial mobilization status.
While attention focused on the flying units and their maintenance personnel, thousands of other Reservists in all functional areas supported Desert Shield from bases in the United States, Europe, the Middle East, and the Gulf. Firefighters, security police, aerial personnel, supply, transportation, and administrative specialists, civil engineers, cooks, doctors, lawyers, chaplains, and others were involved. They served at their home stations, at other bases left short of personnel when active duly forces deployed, at staging bases throughout the world, where they augmented facilities over-burdened by the flow of personnel and equipment, and in the theater of operations itself. In percentage terms, Reserve medical personnel were among the most heavily involved. In expectation of massive casualties that fortunately never came, all Air Force Reserve medical units, and virtually all of their assignal personnel were eventually called to active duty. In late November, the Air Force Reserve’s first and, as it turned out, only tactical fighter unit to be recalled was alerted for call-up. The 706th Tactical Fighter Squadron of the 926th Tactical Fighter Group, an A-10 unit stationed at Naval Air Station New Orleans, Louisiana, deployed to Saudi Arabia in early January.
In early December, the 439th Military Airlift Wing was activated at home station, Westover AFB, Massachusetts. Wing personnel had been operating Lite base as a east coast staging facility since 17 August, the recall brought all unit personnel to duty to support operations at the base the last and largest block of recalls came in early January, when about 7,000 Reservists received orders. By about 1 February 1991, there were more than 17,500 on active duty. About 3,800 were officers, 13,700 enlisted personnel. Approximately 1,800 were Air Reserve Technicians, 1,300 were Individual Mobilization Augmentees, and more than 500 were members of the Individual Ready Reserve. More than 7,800 were in medical specialties.
The on-set of fighting in mid-January found Air Force Reserve units in action throughout the theater. The strategic airlift forces continued to shuttle personnel and equipment into Europe and to bases in the Gulf. Tactical airlift forces played a major role in the redeployment of forces in northern Saudi Arabia, as commanders set up what became the dramatic left hook into Iraq. The A-10s, operating from bases close to the front lines, attacked the full range of ground targets, including Iraqi Scud missiles. Reserve AC-130 and HH-3E helicopters also support special operations and search and rescue missions. In combat. Reservists claimed their share of noteworthy firsts during the war.
In three months from January through March 1991, no Air Force Reserve aircraft were lost during the war. Nor were any Reservists killed in combat. The mobilization reached its peak on 12 March 1991, with almost 23,500 Air Force Reservists on duty. The Department of Defense authorized the gaining major command commanders to demobilize Reservists, consistent with military requirements, on 8 March 1991.
Most Reservists had been demobilized by late June, but a handful remained on active duty through August. The Air Force Reserve in the 1990s the end of the war did not see the end of Air Force Reserve activity in Europe or the Gulf. Provide Comfort, the effort to deliver relief
supplies to Kurdish refugees in southern Turkey and northern Iraq, began on 7 April, supported by Reservists. Arc Wind, the use of Reserve C-130s to move returning personnel from East Coast bases to their home stations, also began at about that time.
The Air Force Reserve entered the space program with the activation of the 7th Space Operations Squadron at Falcon AFB, Colorado, 1 Jan 1993.
The Air Force Reserve's associate units had the "(Associate)" dropped from their unit designation on 1 October 1994, although there was no change in the way the units were organized or operated related to this action.
Air Reserve Technician (ART)
A full-time AFRC civil service employee assigned to an Associate unit, and a member of the Air Force Reserve with a Reserve assignment on the unit manpower document (UMD) of the Reserve Associate unit. The primary duties of the ART are to maintain a full-time unit management structure, provide support to the peacetime utilization rate, and to train other assigned Reserve personnel, all of which are to ensure unit readiness and productivity.
Traditional Reservist (TR)
Non-ART member of the Air Force Reserve, available for active duty service if mobilized.
Civil Service Employee
A civilian employee (non-ART) of the Air Force Reservenunit who is not a traditional reservist and is not subject to mobilization with the Reserve associate unit.
Availability
A period of time determined by reservists during which they may be absent from their civilian occupation and present for training with the Reserve associate unit. All training activities (including AMC tasked tanker/airlift missions) must be planned to ensure return to home base within the allotted time.
Activation
The process of placing members of the selected reserves on active duty. Activation includes all forms of mobilization and service under the Presidential Selected Reserve Call-up as well as consensual, or voluntary, service under 10 U.S.C. 12301 (formerly 672d), generally referred to as volunteerism. The term non-mobilized is understood to be the opposite of activated; i.e., peace time duty or training in the form of inactive duty for training, annual tours, additional flying training periods or proficiency training and school tours.
Associate
The Reserve associate concept establishes Reserve units, without unit aircraft or equipment, collocated with active units. These units share aircraft, equipment, vehicles, and other facilities of the active unit. They are composed of traditional reservists, civil service employees, and ARTs.
The Air Force Reserve's associate units had the "(Associate)" dropped from their unit designation on 1 October 1994, although there was no change in the way the units were organized or operated related to this action.