Headquarters,
251st Communications Group was constituted at Springfield, Ohio, on 5 October 1952. Commanded by Major Charles R. Stahl, the Headquarters had an initial strength of five people. Of the existing
Air National Guard (ANG) communications groups and active duty group, the 251st is the oldest, and it is also the parent unit of two other ANG combat communications groups: The
226th Combat Communications Group in Alabama and the
254th Combat Communications Group in Texas. At its inception, the group had twelve subordinate units in Ohio, North Carolina, Missouri, Illinois, Texas, Alabama, and Arkansas. The mission of the 251st initially was a composite of the missions of today's Engineering – Installation Squadrons and Combat Communications Squadrons. While the organization was charged with providing, installing, operating, and maintaining communications equipment for deployed flying units, it did so from "scratch", with a greater variety of small components than today's relatively complete tactical capabilities. Beginning in 1953, the headquarters planned and directed Group-Wide Exercises at locations across the country, beginning with annual training at
Stewart Air Force Base, New York, in August of that year. In 1954, the organization was authorized with its first full-time officer air technician: Capt (later Lt Col) Herbert E. Moore. In that year, the headquarters strength increased to nine officers and nine enlisted personnel. The 251st started remissioning into a Cyberspace Engineering Installation Group in 2010. The current mission of the 251st is to command, organize, equip, train and administer assigned and attached forces to ensure readiness in order to provide communications engineering and installation services to support emergency USAF requirements and to provide a staff element for management of Communications and Electronics (C-E) personnel when deployed in support of Air Force taskings. To train for its wartime mission, the group has been deploying to exercises since 1976, with its first overseas exercise involvement occurring in 1978. Since its first deployment to these
Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) and overseas exercises, the 251st has deployed personnel and equipment to Korea, the European Theater, the
United States Southern Command, and to Southwest Asia. During Operation Desert Shield and
Operation Desert Storm, the 251st provided over 1,500 workdays in voluntary direct support, both in the area of responsibility and in back-fill roles stateside. Today, the 251st manages all ANG EI AEF and JCS Request for Forces (RFF) taskings, T10 and T32 workload for the ANG EI community. Currently, six partial mobilizations are underway moving forces to multiple areas of responsibility. Additionally, 100 or so projects are completed yearly at a 65% cost saving over non-organic blue-suit contractors. ==Assignments==