World War II Training in the United States The
group was first activated at
Duncan Field, Texas on 22 February 1942 as the
317th Transport Group with the
39th,
40th and
41st Transport Squadrons assigned. The group's initial
cadre was eighteen enlisted men and one captain. In mid-June, the group added a fourth squadron, the
46th Transport Squadron and moved to
Bowman Field, Kentucky with 83 men assigned. The group was equipped with several military models of the DC-3, primarily the
Douglas C-47 Skytrain. These planes were outfitted with additional internal fuel tanks, for the group was to ferry them across the Pacific. The group's
aircrews flew them to the Pacific coast to practice long range navigation, while the ground echelon proceeded by train to
Camp Stoneman, California, embarking on the on 31 December 1942, while the
aircrews departed on the first leg of their ferry flight to Australia on 5 January 1943.
Combat in the Pacific The 317th arrived in Australia in January 1943, where it was assigned to
Fifth Air Force. Upon arrival in Australia, the 46th Squadron was placed under the control of the Allied Directorate of Air Transport and equipped with a
Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress and a
Consolidated B-24 Liberator converted for transport operations, plus several
Douglas C-39s. In June 1943. the B-17 crashed with six crewmembers and 36 passengers on board in what was considered at the time the worst aviation disaster in Australia. The group deployed to New Guinea for operations for a short time early in 1943. It received a
Distinguished Unit Citation for making numerous flights in unarmed planes over the
Owen Stanley Range on 30 January and 1 February 1943 to transport reinforcements and supplies to
Wau, Papua New Guinea, where allied forces were defending a valuable Allied airdrome against Japanese attack. The 317th received its second Distinguished Unit Citation for this operation. Colonel John Lackey, commanding officer of the 317th, was the first American pilot to land in Japan. His plane, and the next two to land were equipped with special communications gear in order to establish an initial command and control network for the
occupying forces. After the end of the Pacific War, the 317th remained in the theater as part of
Far East Air Forces. The group provided troop carrier and courier service in the Far East. It added
Curtiss C-46 Commandos to its C-47s, then replaced the C-47s with larger four-engine
Douglas C-54 Skymasters in 1947, adding "Heavy" to its name in the spring of 1948. The group left Japan for Germany in September 1948, completing the transfer in nine days. the group was attached to the 7489th Air Force Wing. However, the
Royal Air Force had made improvements to several of their bases in the
British Zone of Occupation and began to open them for use by American units participating in the airlift. In December, the group moved to one of these fields,
Celle RAF Station, which permitted it to make supply flights to Berlin over flat terrain through the shorter Northern Corridor to Berlin. Once the 317th Wing moved to Celle in January 1949, the group was relieved of its attachment to the 7489th Wing. The group participated in Operation Vittles, the
Berlin Airlift, until 31 July 1949. It was typical for the group to fly 100 round trips to
Berlin a day during the airlift carrying various cargo, but mostly coal. However, President
Truman's reduced 1949 defense budget also required reductions in the number of groups in the Air Force to 48, and the group was inactivated in September and its planes redistributed to other units or returned to the United States. The group was activated during
Operation Desert Storm, and deployed forces of the 317th airlifted American and allied combat troops deep inside Iraqi territory to support the flanking maneuver that led to the surrender of
Iraq's Republican Guard. It was inactivated a little over a year later, when
airlift and
fighter units at Pope were combined into a single wing, the
23d Wing. ==Lineage==