309th Maintenance Wing

309th Maintenance Wing
309th Troop Carrier Group C-123
Active	1942–1944, 1949-1951, 1955-1957, 2005-2012
Country	United States
Branch	United States Air Force
Type	Equipment Support
Part of	Air Force Materiel Command
Decorations	Air Force Outstanding Unit Award
Insignia
309th Maintenance Wing emblem (Approved 5 July 2005

The 309th Maintenance Wing is an inactive wing of the United States Air Force last based at Hill Air Force Base, Utah. On July 12, 2012 it was inactivated and its function became part of the newly formed Ogden Air Logistics Complex.

The wing was first activated in the early expansion of the Army Air Forces during World War II as the 309th Bombardment Group at Davis-Monthan Field, Arizona. Its initial components were the 376th,377th, and 378th Bombardment Squadrons, and the 37th Reconnaissance Squadron. The group was an Operational Training Unit (OTU), which trained bombardment groups until January 1943. The OTU program involved the use of an oversized parent unit to provide cadres to "satellite groups." It then became a Replacement Training Unit and trained replacement aircrews, using B-25 Mitchell aircraft in both training programs. In addition, the group operated specialist training schools, with as many as eight in operation at once. However, the AAF was finding that standard military units, based on relatively inflexible tables of organization were proving less well adapted to performing the mission. Accordingly, a more functional system was adopted in which each base was organized into a separate numbered unit. As a result, in 1944, the group was disbanded and replaced by the 329th Army Air Force Base Unit (Replacement Training Unit, Medium, Bombardment), which absorbed the mission, material, and personnel of the group. The group's four squadrons became Sections A through D of the Base Unit.

Postwar the group was reconstituted and redesignated as the Continental Air Command reserve 309th Troop Carrier Group. The 309th used the aircraft of the active duty 314th Troop Carrier Wing, to which it was attached for training. The group was transferred to Tactical Air Command in 1950, after which it apparently ceased flying operations. It was inactivated in 1951 and its personnel deployed to Far East Air Forces to support 315th Air Division transport units during the Korean War.