McChord AFB, Washington

McChord Field (formerly and still commonly known as McChord Air Force Base) is a United States Air Force base in the northwest United States, in Pierce County, Washington. South of Tacoma, McChord AFB is the home of the 62nd Airlift Wing, Air Mobility Command, the airbase's primary mission being worldwide strategic airlift.

The McChord AFB facility was consolidated with the U.S. Army's Fort Lewis on 1 February 2010 to become part of the Joint Base Lewis-McChord complex. This initiative was driven by the Base Realignment and Closure Round in 2005 and is designed to combine current infrastructure into one maximizing war fighting capability and efficiency, while saving taxpayer dollars.

62nd Airlift Wing

The 62nd Airlift Wing (62 AW) is the host unit at McChord AFB. It is assigned to the Eighteenth Air Force and is composed of more than 7,200 active duty military and civilian personnel. It is tasked with supporting worldwide combat and humanitarian airlift contingencies. Aircraft of the 62nd fly around the globe, conducting airdrop training; it also carries out the Antarctic resupply missions.

Components

The 62nd Operations Group flies the C-17 Globemaster III transport from McChord Field. It consists of three airlift squadrons and an Operations Support Squadron.
* 4th Airlift Squadron
* 7th Airlift Squadron
* 8th Airlift Squadron

Other wing components are the 62nd Maintenance Group, 62nd Operations Group, 62nd Comptroller Squadron, and 62nd Medical Squadron.

Tenant units

Other major units stationed at McChord Field are:
* 446th Airlift Wing (Air Force Reserve Command)
* Western Air Defense Sector
* 22nd Special Tactics Squadron
* 262nd Cyberspace Operations Squadron
* 361st Recruiting Squadron
* 373d Training Squadron

McChord Air Museum

The McChord Air Museum, operated by the McChord Air Museum Foundation, exhibits 17 aircraft as well as artifacts related to the history of the airbase.

History

Origins

In 1917, the citizens of Pierce County, Washington approved a bond measure for to buy of land to be donated to the Federal Government for use as a military reservation. This land became Camp Lewis (and later Fort Lewis). Ten years later, in 1927, another bond measure was passed to establish an airfield just north of the military reservation. The airfield, named Tacoma Field, officially opened 14 March 1930.

On 28 February 1938 the airfield was officially transferred to the federal government. Three years after the transfer, on 3 July 1940, the airfield was renamed McChord Field, in honor of Colonel William Caldwell McChord, who had been killed in an accident near Richmond, Virginia on 18 August 1937. Col. McChord, (1881–1937), rated as a junior military aviator in 1918, died while trying to force-land his Northrop A-17 near Maidens, Virginia. At the time of his death, he was Chief of the Training and Operations Division in HQ Army Air Corps. Tacoma Field was renamed McChord Field, 17 December 1937.Mueller, Robert, "Air Force Bases Volume 1: Active Air Force Bases Within the United States of America on 17 September 1982", United States Air Force Historical Research Center, Office of Air Force History, Washington, D.C., 1989, , page 391. Over the subsequent two decades McChord Field grew to roughly , encompassing the northern tip of the Ft. Lewis. It became independent of Ft. Lewis in 1947 following the creation of the Air Force under provisions of the National Security Act of 1947 and was subsequently named McChord AFB.

World War II

In 1940, McChord Field became the headquarters of the GHQ Air Force Northwest Air District, with a mission for the defense of the Pacific Northwest and Upper Great Plains regions of the United States. The 17th Bombardment Group was moved to the new airfield from March Field, California and was equipped with the Douglas B-18 Bolo medium bomber.

Following the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor on 6 December 1941, the 17th Bombardment Group flew anti-submarine patrols off the West Coast of the United States with the new North American B-25 Mitchell medium bomber. As the first unit to operate the B-25, the 17th achieved another ''first'' on 24 December 1941 when one of its Mitchells dropped four bombs on a Japanese submarine near the mouth of the Columbia River. The 17th Bomb Group was reassigned in February 1942 to Columbia Army Air Base in South Carolina, where crews from the group were selected to carry out the Doolittle Raid on Japan in April.

With the departure of the 17th Bomb Group, the mission of McChord Field became supporting the Army Air Forces Training Command's mission of training of units, crews, and individuals for bombardment, fighter, and reconnaissance operations. Northwest Air Force was re-designated as the Second Air Force, and became the training organization of B-17 Flying Fortress and B-24 Liberator heavy bombardment groups.

Nearly all new heavy bomb groups organized after Pearl Harbor were organized and trained at Second Air Force Bases, by II Bomber Command operational training units (OTU) then were deployed to combat commands around the world. McChord trained numerous bombardment squadrons during the war, receiving graduates of AAF Training Command's flight and technical schools and forming them into operational squadrons which were then sent on to second and third phase training prior to being deployed to the overseas combat air forces.

Starting in mid-1943 the training of B-17 and B-24 replacement crews began to be phased out, as the Second Air Force began ramping up training of B-29 Superfortress Very Heavy bomb groups, destined for Twentieth Air Force. Under the newly organized XX Bomber Command, B-29 aircraft were received from Boeing's manufacturing plants at Seattle and Wichita, Kansas and new combat groups were organized and trained, primarily in Kansas and Nebraska.

McChord also had large maintenance facilities for Air Technical Service Command during the war, serving as a P-39 Airacobra modification center April 1944 – May 1945 for lend-lease aircraft being sent to Russia via the Alaska Territory.

Following the end of the war in Europe in May 1945, McChord redeployed thousands of troops arriving from the European theater to the Pacific as part of Air Transport Command in anticipation of invading the Japanese home islands scheduled for November 1. The atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August 1945 forced the surrender of Japan, cancelling the planned operation altogether.

Cold War

In 1945 McChord was designated as a permanent station by the Army Air Forces. It was assigned to Continental Air Forces in April 1945, becoming headquarters of the 1st and 2d Bomb Wings after their return from combat in Europe. In 1948, the field was re-designated McChord Air Force Base.

Air Defense Command

: ''see also: 25th Air Division''

On 1 August 1946, McChord was assigned to the new Air Defense Command, with a mission of air defense of the United States. During the Cold War, numerous fighter-interceptor squadrons were stationed at the base, as well as Radar and Command and Control organizations, the 25th Air Division being headquartered at McChord from 1951 until 1990.

The 325th Fighter Group (All-Weather) operated two squadrons of F-82F Twin Mustangs from McChord between 1948 and 1950, the first postwar fighter optimized for the air defense interceptor mission. Designed for very-long range bomber escort missions in the Pacific during World War II, the design became operational too late to see service and was adapted for the air defense mission.

Other interceptor squadrons stationed at McChord were:
* 64th Fighter-Interceptor Squadron
* 317th Fighter Interceptor Squadron
* 318th Fighter-Interceptor Squadron
* 465th Fighter-Interceptor Squadron
* 498th Fighter-Interceptor Squadron

The base was the location of the first of twenty-eight stations built by ADC as part of the permanent air defense radar network, and was the top-priority site for ADC radars.A Handbook of Aerospace Defense Organization 1946 – 1980, by Lloyd H. Cornett and Mildred W. Johnson, Office of History, Aerospace Defense Center, Peterson Air Force Base, ColoradoWinkler, David F. (1997), Searching the skies: the legacy of the United States Cold War defense radar program. Prepared for United States Air Force Headquarters Air Combat Command. The 505th Aircraft Control and Warning Group, the first postwar general surveillance radar organization was activated at McChord on 21 May 1947. Defensive warning radars became operational at McChord on 1 June 1950 with World War II-era AN/CPS-4 and AN/CPS-5 radars being operated by the 635th Aircraft Control and Warning Squadron. ADC completed installation of two AN/CPS-6B medium-range search and height-finder radars in February 1951. Performance of these new radars was deemed inferior to the World War II vintage models and the calibration process delayed operational readiness at this and other sites. An AN/FPS-6 height-finder radar was installed in the mid-1950s.

In 1958, a Semi Automatic Ground Environment (SAGE) Data Center (DC-12), and Combat Center (CC-3) was established at McChord. It became operational in 1960. The SAGE system was a network linking Air Force (and later FAA) General Surveillance Radar stations into a centralized center for Air Defense, intended to provide early warning and response for a Soviet nuclear attack. It was initially under the command of the Seattle Air Defense Sector (SeADS), activated on 8 January 1958.

The ADC radar site (P-1) was deactivated 1 April 1960 and repositioned to Fort Lawton AFS (RP-1) where the Air Force consolidated its anti-aircraft radars with the United States Army Seattle Defense Area Army Air-Defense Command Post (AADCP) S-90DC for Nike missile operations.

SeADS was inactivated on 1 April 1966 and the SAGE headquarters combat center came under the 25th Air Division. The Command Center (CC-3) was active until 30 June 1966 when it was inactivated as part of an ADC reorganization. The Data Center (DC-12), with its AN/FSQ-7 computer remained active until 4 August 1983 under the 25th AD when technology advances made the SAGE system obsolete.

Today, the successor organization to the 25th AD, the Western Air Defense Sector (WADS), is a major tenant organization at McChord, being one of two air defense sectors responsible for the security and integrity of continental United States air space. WADS is staffed by members of the Washington Air National Guard (WANG) and the Royal Canadian Air Force (RCAF). Operationally, WADS reports to the North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) headquartered at Peterson Air Force Base, Colorado.

Military Airlift Command

In 1947 Tactical Air Command moved the 62nd Troop Carrier Group to McChord Field from Bergstrom Field