World War II Bombardment training unit The squadron was first activated at
Salt Lake City Army Air Base, Utah on 6 July 1942 as one of the original four squadrons of the
330th Bombardment Group. Although equipped early on with some
Boeing B-17 Flying Fortresses, it became a
Consolidated B-24 Liberator Operational Training Unit (OTU), moving to
Biggs Field, Texas by early September. It then assumed responsibility for their training and oversaw their expansion with graduates of
Army Air Forces Training Command schools to become effective combat units. Phase I training concentrated on individual training in
crewmember specialties. Phase II training emphasized the coordination for the crew to act as a team. The final phase concentrated on operation as a unit. By early 1944 most units had been activated and almost three quarters of them had deployed overseas. With the exception of special programs, like forming
Boeing B-29 Superfortress units, training “fillers” for existing units became more important than unit training. The squadron then became a
Replacement Training Unit (RTU). As a result, the 330th Bombardment Group and its components, including the 459th, along with all supporting units at Biggs were inactivated or disbanded on 1 April 1944
B-29 Superfortress operations against Japan The squadron was activated the same day at
Walker Army Air Field, Kansas as a Boeing B-29 unit. While waiting for new B-29s to come off the production line, it again flew B-17 Flying Fortresses for a short time. It trained at Walker and at
Dalhart Army Air Field, Texas until January 1945, when it deployed to the Pacific. It flew its first combat mission, an attack on the
Hodogaya chemical plant in
Koriyama, Japan on 12 April 1945. The squadron resumed attacking urban industrial areas until the end of the war in August 1945. It was awarded a
Distinguished Unit Citation (DUC) for incendiary raids on the industrial sections of
Tokushima and
Gifu and a strike against the hydroelectrical power center at
Kofu in July 1945. It received a second DUC for a mission attacking the
Nakajima aircraft engine plant at
Musashino near
Tokyo in August. Anticipating the return of mission aircraft to reserve units, ConAC replaced the 917th Wing with the
330th Troop Carrier Wing on 14 June 1952. The squadron was redesignated the
459th Troop Carrier Squadron and activated the same day. The 459th was inactivated and transferred its personnel to the
57th Troop Carrier Squadron, which was simultaneously activated.
Vietnam War In August 1966, the Air Force and the
Army began implementing Project Red Leaf, which would transfer responsibility for the
de Havilland Canada C-7 Caribou from the Army to the Air Force following the
Johnson-McConnell agreement of 1966. At
Qui Nhon Airfield, South Vietnam, Air Force personnel began being assigned to the
92nd Aviation Company. The
Department of Defense had ordered that the
483d Tactical Airlift Wing's new squadrons be located on Air Force installations, not on Army posts, and the cadre of the wing at
Cam Ranh Bay Air Base began planning to move squadron level operations from the small Army camps they were operating from to permanent sites when the Air Force units were activated. In December, the company began moving to
Phu Cat Air Base, although Phu Cat only had a
laterite strip at the time and it was not until April that permanent facilities and a runway was ready for use. On 1 January 1967, the 459th Squadron was organized and took over Caribou operations from the 92nd Company. The squadron provided intratheater airlift to support United States military civic actions, combat support and civic assistance throughout the Republic of Vietnam. This included airland and
airdrop assault missions. It also maintained detachments at
Da Nang Air Base and
Pleiku Air Base. In April 1970, the squadron helped break the siege of
Dak Seang Special Forces Camp. North Vietnamese forces had surrounded the camp, and learning from the success of air resupply during their 1969 attack on the
Ben Het Camp, also established
anti-aircraft artillery positions along likely air resupply corridors. On the first day of the siege, two C-7s were diverted from their scheduled missions and staged out of Pleiku to make the first airdrops to the camp. Resupply of the camp was so urgent that all drop-qualified crews of the 483rd Tactical Airlift Wing were ordered to Pleiku to support the operation and eleven sorties were flown that day with cover from
Douglas A-1 Skyraiders. Crews approached the camp from the north or south to use terrain to mask their approaches from enemy
flak. Loss of the third Caribou in five days prompted a move to resupply the camp with night drops, with cover and illumination provided by
Fairchild AC-119 Stinger gunships. All 483rd Wing squadrons participated in the operation. It earned a second
Presidential Unit Citation for this action, evacuation of over 2000 refugees from Cambodia, and transportation of the Presidential Southeast Asia Investigation Team to various remote locations in South Vietnam. The squadron was inactivated in June 1970 with the beginning of the withdrawal of the United States military from Viet Nam. The Air Force also decided the administrative airlift fleet would become all jet, using
North American T-39 Sabreliners, although the 459th also flew turboprop powered
Beechcraft C-12 Hurons. In 1978, the administrative airlift squadrons transferred to the
375th Aeromedical Airlift Wing, and until 1991, it also flew
aeromedical evacuation missions. In 1984, it converted from the Sabreliner to the Learjet C-21. In December 1991, the two squadrons were consolidated as the 459th Airlift Squadron. In 2016, two of the squadron's Twin Hueys were equipped with hoists, giving them the ability to participate in search and rescue missions. Until 2007, it also operated the C-21 Learjet. It swapped them for C-12J Hurons, and operates 75% of the Air Force's "J" model Hurons. Since 2017, the squadron's C-12Js have been the primary
aeromedical evacuation aircraft in the western Pacific. In August 2025, the squadron flew its last sortie with the UH-1 helicopter. No direct replacement helicopter is programmed for the squadron's short range airlift. ==Lineage==