16th Air Expeditionary Wing

16th Air Expeditionary Wing
Active	1944-1946 2001-Present
Country	United States
Branch	United States Air Force
Part of	United States Air Forces in Europe
Garrison/HQ	Aviano AB, Italy

Two F-16s from Aviano Air Base, Italy, drop away from the fuel boom after gassing up from a KC-135 Stratotanker over the Adriatic Sea. The jets were refueled by the New Jersey Air National Guard's 108th Air Refueling Wing, McGuire Air Force Base, N.J. The 108th ARW is part of the 16th Expeditionary Operations Group, a small U.S. Air Force detachment located on this French air base. The 16th Expeditionary Operations Group is a unit of the 16th Air Expeditionary Wing, U.S. Air Forces in Europe..

The United States Air Force's 16th Air Expeditionary Wing is an Air Expeditionary unit of the United States Air Forces in Europe as part of the Global War on Terrorism.

Mission

The 16th AEW was activated under temporary orders for a specific purpose or mission. Once the subject mission is completed, the 16th AEW will be inactivated.

Units

It is believed that the unit is located at Aviano AB, Italy. It may operate expeditionary sites at Camp Bondsteel, Kosovo; Camp Able Sentry, The Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia; Sarajevo and Tuzla AB, Bosnia-Herzegovina; Taszar AB, Hungary; Zagreb, Croatia and Naval Air Station Sigonella and San Vito Air Station, Italy; in addition to a contingency processing center at Rhein-Main AB, Germany.

• 16th Expeditionary Operations Group, Istres AB
• 401st Expeditionary Air Base Group, Tuzla AB
• 406th Expeditionary Air Base Group, Taszar AB
• 620th Expeditionary Air Base Group, Camp Able Sentry
• 2nd Expeditionary Air Support Operations Squadron, Camp Bondsteel
• 16th Expeditionary Air Support Operations Group, Sarajevo
• 16th Expeditionary Support Squadron, Rhein-Main AB
• 99th Expeditionary Reconnaissance Squadron, NAS Sigonella
• 775th Expeditionary Support Squadron, San Vito AS

Weapons Systems Operated

• Boeing KC-135E/R Stratotanker
• General Atomics MQ-1A Predator UAV
• Lockheed U-2R
• General Dynamics F-16 Flying Falcon

History

World War II

16th Bombardment Group

The unit was reconsituted as the 16th Bombardment Group (Very Heavy) on 28 March 1944, and was activated on 1 April 1944 at Dalhart AAF, Texas. Equipped with the Boeing B-29B Superfortresses, the operational bomb squadrons were the 15th, 16th, 17th and 21st. The unit trained for combat initially at Dalhart, then moving to Fairmont AAF, Nebraska on 15 August 1944.

The B-29B was a limited production aircraft, built soley by Bell-Atlanta. It had all but the tail defensive armament removed, since experience had shown that by 1944 the only significant Japanese fighter attacks were coming from the rear. The tail gun was aimed and fired automatically by the new AN/APG-15B radar fire control system that detected the approaching enemy plane and made all the necessary calculations. The elimination of the turrets and the associated General Electric computerized gun system increased the top speed of the Superfortress to 364 mph at 25,000 feet and made the B-29B suitable for fast, unescorted hit-and-run bombing raids and photographic missions.

The 16th was assigned to Twentieth Air Force on 7 March 1945 and was deployed to Northwest Field, Guam as part of the 315th Bombardment Wing. It's B-29s were marked with a Diamond-B tail code. The group entered combat on 16 June 1945 with a bombing raid against an airfield on Moen. Flew first mission against the Japanese home islands on 26 June 1945 and afterwards operated principally against the enemy's petroleum industry.

Flying unescorted in the face of severe enemy attack, the 16th bombed the Maruzen Oil Refinery at Shimotsu on the night of 2 July; the Mitsubishi refinery and Kawasaki oil installations at Kawasaki on the night of 12-13 July, and the coal liquefication plants at Ube on 22-23 July 1945. The unit was awarded a Distinguished Unit Citation for the missions.

There were several missions flown during the month of August and each resulted in the virtual destruction of an important Japanese petroleum refinery. The tactics of radar bombing from individual aircraft were used during attacks on the Mitsubishi-Hayama Petroleum Complex on the night of 1-2 August; the Nippon Oil Refinery and Tank Farm at Amagasaki on 9-10 August, and the final target of the war for the 16th Group was the Nippon Oil Refinery at Tsuchizaki on 15 August 1945.

After the war the group dropped food and supplies to Allied prisoners gf war in Japan, Manchuria, and Korea, and participated in several show-of-force missions over Japan. The problem of dropping supplies to Prisoners of War was difficult. In the first place, most of the camps were small and hard to locate. Even more important was the great distance that had to be flown on some of the missions. Accurate information was lacking on several of the camps, especially those located in Manchuria and Korea. The Japanese had apparently shifted many of the prisoners around and closed down some of the concentration centers. Most of the supplies were dropped with the aid of a parachute but certain types of packages were permitted to fall free. The bombardier on each B-29 had quite a problem in determining the exact moment of release.

On 2 September the 16th Group participated in the "Show of Force" mission over Tokyo which took place while the surrender terms were being signed on the battleship Missouri in Tokyo Bay. The mission was carefully planned as it represented the first attempt at formation flying that the organization had made since its arrival overseas. The aircraft flew over Tokyo Bay just as the surrender terms were signed and the men could watch the Missouri at the same time that they heard the broadcast of the ceremony over the radio. The B-29s flew at approximately 3,000 feet and could see clearly through a scattered undercast.

The 16th Bombardment Group was inactivated on Guam on 15 April 1946.

External links

• 16th AEW Globalsecurity.org
• History of the 16th Bombardment Group