The 12th Operations Group is the flying component of the 12th Flying Training Wing of the United States Air Force's Air Education and Training Command. The group headquarters is located at Randolph Air Force Base, Texas. The unit's main missions include aircraft instructor pilot training in Beechcraft T-6 Texan II, Northrop T-38C Talon and Raytheon T-1 Jayhawk aircraft, Air Force and Navy undergraduate combat systems officer training and fighter fundamentals student pilot instructor training in the Northrop AT-38C.
The group was first activated in January 1941 as the 12th Bombardment Group. After training and flying antisubmarine patrols off the Pacific Coast, the group moved to Egypt in July 1942. In the Mediterranean Theater of Operations, it took part in the Western Desert campaign and Italian campaign, earning a Distinguished Unit Citation. In 1944, it moved to the China Burma India Theater and participated in the Burma campaign before the war's end. The unit returned to the United States in January 1946 and was inactivated on arriving at the port of embarkation.
The group was briefly active in 1947 to 1948, but was not manned or equipped due to budgetary restrictions. It was activated on 1 November 1950 as the 12th Fighter-Escort Group, but transferred its resources to the 12th Fighter-Escort Wing in February 1951 and was inactivated in June 1952 as Strategic Air Command adopted the dual deputy organization.
With the implementation of the Objective Wing Organization, the unit was activated on 15 December 1991, as the 12th Operations Group and assigned to the 12th Flying Training Wing.
Components
The group contains seven squadrons(Tail Code: RA): 12th Operations Support Squadron 12th Training Squadron 99th Flying Training Squadron T-1A Jayhawk Instructor pilot training 435th Fighter Training Squadron T-38C Talon Introduction to Fighter Fundamentals 558th Flying Training Squadron Undergraduate RPA training 559th Flying Training Squadron T-6A Texan II Instructor pilot training 560th Flying Training Squadron T-38C Talon Instructor pilot training
History Organization and initial operations The group was first activated as the 12th Bombardment Group at McChord Field, Washington on 15 January 1941 as the United States began building up its armed forces after the beginning of World War II in Europe, drawing its initial cadre from the 17th Bombardment Group.Stahura, p. 11 The 81st, 82d, and 83d Bombardment Squadrons were the group's first components, while the 19th Reconnaissance Squadron was attached to the 12th.Maurer, Combat Squadrons, pp. 283–384, 286–287, 289–290, 536 Although designated a light bomber group, the unit was initially equipped with a mix of Douglas B-18 Bolo and Douglas B-23 Dragon medium bombers and a few Stearman PT-17 trainers.Tucker & Bledsoe, p. 279 In August 1941, the Air Corps converted its reconnaissance squadrons attached to light bomber groups and the 19th Reconnaissance Squadron became the 94th Bombardment Squadron and was assigned to the group.Maurer, Combat Squadrons, p. 536
At the time of the Japanese Attack on Pearl Harbor, the group began flying antisubmarine patrols and watching for signs of an invasion. At the end of December 1941, the group was designated a medium bomber unit, consistent with its equipment. This resulted in the 94th Squadron again becoming a reconnaissance unit, as the 94th Reconnaissance Squadron. In February, the group moved to Esler Field, Louisiana, where it began converting to the North American B-25 Mitchell. With the Mitchells, the 94th resumed the bombardment mission, this time as the 434th Bombardment Squadron in April. In early May, the group deployed to Stockton Army Air Field, California, where half its crews stood alert during daylight hours. After the defeat of the Japanese Navy in the Battle of Midway, the group returned to Esler Field.Tucker & Bledsoe, p. 280
In June 1942, while in the United States for a conference with President Franklin D. Roosevelt, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill received word that the British Eighth Army had been defeated in a tank battle with Field Marshal Erwin Rommel's Afrika Korps near Tobruk, Libya, and was retreating back toward Alexandria, Egypt. Churchill immediately made an urgent plea for military aid to help stop Rommel from over-running Egypt, the Suez Canal and the Arabian oil fields. The United States dispatched the 12th and two other groups to the Middle East to reinforce the British forces there.Stahura, p. 13
The 12th was the second of the three groups to leave the United States. Between 14 July and 2 August, aircrews departed Morrison Field, Florida for Egypt via the South Atlantic ferry route to Egypt by way of Brazil, Ascension Island, across Africa to the Sudan, and then north to Egypt. by mid-August, all crews had arrived in Egypt without a single loss. Ground personnel of all three groups and supporting units sailed from New York City on 16 July 1942 on the , a fast French ocean liner that had been impressed by the British, for a month-long trip around South Africa and up the Red Sea to Suez, Egypt, arriving on 16 August 1942.
World War II Western Desert Campaign
As soon as they arrived in Egypt, group headquarters and the 81st and 82d Squadrons moved to RAF Deversoir, while the 83d and 434th Squadrons were at RAF Ismailia, about 15 miles apart on the Suez Canal. It began training with Royal Air Force (RAF) and South African Air Force BostonThe Boston was the RAF version of the A-20 Havoc. units in desert warfare tactics and navigation. A month of training included five combat missions in combined formations with the Bostons.Stahura, p. 16 The group flew its first mission on its own on 31 August against enemy airfields at Daba (LG 105) and Fuka (LG 17) and port facilities at Matruh, Egypt.Tucker & Bledsoe, p. 281
The group's first missions were night attacks. However, the lack of flame dampeners on its Mitchells made them easy targets for flak defenses and night fighters. Losses, which included the group commander, Colonel Goodrich, caused the withdrawal of the unit from night operations until its planes could be modified with "finger exhausts". The unit's first missions were flown to support forces opposing Rommel's final effort to break through to the Suez Canal at the Battle of Alam Halfa between 31 August and 4 September 1942. These missions helped the British Eighth Army repel the Afrika Corps attacks. Rommel attributed this defeat to air attacks enabled by the air superiority established by the RAF and Allied forces Both Allied and enemy forces had learned that the open nature of the western desert made it easy to disperse armored forces, making pinpoint bombing ineffective. As a result, the group adopted the RAF tactic of pattern bombing. Group Mitchells would fly at medium altitude, flying spaced apart to saturate a target area with bombs spaced to damage any vehicles or other objectives in a defined target area.Tucker & Bledsoe, p. 282
During the battles in north Africa, the RAF had established numerous Landing Grounds, identified by LG plus a number. These stretched across northern Egypt and Libya and were used by both sides as the front moved. These landing grounds had no defined runways, and as many as eighteen bombers could take off at the same time, headed directly into the wind.Tucker & Bledsoe, p. 283 In early October, intelligence reports reported that Regia Aeronautica and Luftwaffe airplanes at two of these landing grounds, near Daba (LG 105) and Qattafa (LG 104), had been trapped by heavy rains. The 12th Group and RAF forces attacked the airfields on 9 October, destroying ten enemy aircraft and damaging an additional 22.
A few days later, the operational elements of the group, consisting of the combat crews and a few essential ground personnel needed to keep the B-25s flying, began flying missions from LG 88, about 20 miles from the front lines. This move made them immediately available for strikes requested by the Eighth Army. The bulk of each squadron and headquarters remained behind at their bases near the Suez Canal. Operations from LG 88 began on the night of 19/20 October, just before the Second Battle of El Alamein began on 23 October with a tremendous artillery bombardment. The 12th Group began a week-long shuttle missions, attacking targets phoned in to Eighth Army Air Liaison Officers attached to the group. Eighteen ship formations took off or landed every half-hour during daylight on 24 October. There was little rest as ground crews rushed to refuel, reload bombs and ammunition, and patch flak holes, with operations peaking on 27 October. By 4 November, Rommel began withdraw and main targets became columns of tanks, trucks and troops retreating to the west. Group operational elements advanced to new Landing Grounds to keep up with ground troops, sometimes having to ferry munitions from their old bases to their new stations. Support equipment could not keep up with this rapid advance, and the forward elements depended on commandeered German and Italian materiel until rains bogged down the advance, permitting Rommel to withdraw to Tunisia.
By 14 December, the advanced elements of the group were operating from Magrun Landing Ground (LG 142), also called Gambut No. 2, a satellite of RAF Gambut (LG 139), stretching the group over 1200 miles of north Africa. The new base was within range of German bases on Crete, and a raid was planned for 2 January 1943. However to reach this target, dust filters had to be removed from the attack force's engines to increase range. Just as the Mitchells were taking off, a dust storm hit the Landing Ground and only twelve planes were able to fly the mission, which had little effect on enemy forces.Tucker & Bledsoe, pp. 283-284
American forces under General Dwight D. Eisenhower landed in Algeria and Morocco, and were met by German divisions under Rommel's command. The situation became desperate as they drove the Americans back through the Kasserine Pass. To reinforce Twelfth Air Force, the 81st and 82d Squadrons of the 12th Group were dispatched to reinforce the 310th Bombardment Group at Berteaux Airfield, Algeria on 3 and 4 February 1943.Tucker & Bledsoe, p. 284Maurer, Combat Squadrons, pp. 283–384, 286–287 These two squadrons continued operating under the Twelfth Air Force until the fall of Tunis in May 1943, when they were returned to the group. Meanwhile, the 83d and 434th Squadrons helped break up an attack along the Mareth Line. After the fall of Tunis, the 12th was reunited at Hergla Airfield, Tunisia, and all of the personnel of its squadrons were together again for the first time since their advance parties moved out into the desert eight months earlier.
The group's actions during the north African campaign earned it a Distinguished Unit Citation for its operations from primitive landing grounds under difficult weather and terrain conditions and, despite repeated enemy attacks on its advanced positions and limited resources, made a major contribution to the defeat of enemy forces in the Middle East.Tucker & Bledsoe, p. 285 (quoting from the unit citation)
Italian Campaign