411th Bombardment Group

411th Bombardment Group
A-20G of the 650th Bombardment Squadron
Active	1943–1944
Country	United States
Branch	United States Army Air Forces
Role	Light Bombardment Replacement Training Unit
Part of	Third Air Force

The 411th Bombardment Group is an inactive United States Army Air Forces unit. Its last assignment was with III Bomber Command at Florence Army Air Field, South Carolina, where it was inactivated on 1 May 1944. In July 1985, the group was reconstituted as the 411th Tactical Missile Wing, but has never been active under that name.

The 411th Bombardment Group was activated at Will Rogers Field, Oklahoma on 1 August 1944. Its original squadrons were the 648th, 649th, 650th and 651st Bombardment Squadrons. Two weeks later it moved to Florence Army Air Field, South Carolina, where it absorbed the personnel of the 65th Reconnaissance Group, which had been training observation crews on North American B-25 Mitchell aircraft there.

The group was a World War II Replacement Training Unit, using Douglas A-20 Havoc light bombers. Replacement Training Units were oversized units that trained individual aircrews. After graduating, the airmen were assigned to overseas combat units.

However, standard military units, based on relatively inflexible tables of organization were proving poorly adapted to the training mission. Accordingly, the Army Air Forces adopted a more functional system in which each base was organized into a separate numbered unit. The group was disbanded on 1 May 1944 and its mission, personnel and equipment were transferred to the 334th Army Air Forces Base Unit (Replacement Training Unit, Light Bombardment).

On 31 July 1985 the group was reconstituted and redesignated the 411th Tactical Missile Wing, but was not activated.

 This article incorporates public domain material from the Air Force Historical Research Agency website http://www.afhra.af.mil/.