37th Air Defense Missile Squadron

37th Tactical Missile Squadron
Emblem of the 37th Air Defense Missile Squadron
Active	1942-1944, 1944-1946, 1960-1972
Country	United States
Branch	United States Air Force
Type	bombardment training, strategic bombardment, surface-to-air missile
Role	Air Defense
Size	squadron
Motto(s)	Semper Vigilans (Always Watchful)

The 37th Tactical Missile Squadron is an inactive United States Air Force unit. It was last assigned to the 23d Air Division, Aerospace Defense Command, stationed near Kincheloe AFB, Michigan. It was inactivated on 31 July 1972.

The squadron was first activated as the 537th Bombardment Squadron at Salt Lake City Army Air Base, Utah as one of the four squadrons of the 382d Bombardment Group in late 1942. It moved to Davis-Monthan Field, Arizona, where it was equipped with Consolidated B-24 Liberators and served as an operational training unit until late March 1943. The operational training unit program involved the use of an oversized parent unit to provide cadres to "satellite groups." It then moved to Pocatello Army Air Field, Idaho and became a replacement training unit. Replacement training units were also oversized, but focused on training individual pilots and aircrews. Its personnel were withdrawn circa 3 December 1943 as it moved to Muroc Army Air Field, California and it remained a paper unit until it was inactivated in March 1944.

The second time the unit was activated, it was as the 680th Bombardment Squadron in December 1944 as a B-29 Superfortress very heavy bombardment squadron at Alamogordo Army Air Field, New Mexico. The 680th was equipped with later-model B-29As, with only minor differences than the original B-29 model built by Boeing with some revised engine nacelles and pneumatically-operated bomb-bay doors which could be snapped shut in less than a second. When its training at Alamogordo was completed. the squadron moved to North Field Tinian in the Mariana Islands of the Central Pacific Area in June 1945 and joined the XXI Bomber Command of Twentieth Air Force. Its arrival boosted the 504th Bombardment Group to its full authorization of three bombardment squadrons. Its mission was the strategic bombardment of the Japanese Home Islands and the destruction of Japan's war-making capability.