45th Air Division
45th Air Division
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| Active | 1943–1945; 1954–1958; 1958–1989 |
| Country |
 United States
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| Branch |
 United States Air Force
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| Role | Command of strategic strike forces |
| Part of | Strategic Air Command |
| Engagements | European Theater of World War II |
| Commanders | |
| Notable commanders |
Gen Archie J. Old Jr., Gen John C. Meyer |
| Insignia | |
| 45th Air Division emblem (Approved 12 May 1960) |  |
The 45th Air Division is an inactive United States Air Force unit. Its last assignment was with Eighth Air Force at Pease Air Force Base, New Hampshire. It was inactivated on 14 June 1989.
As the 45th Bombardment Wing, the unit was one of the primary Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress heavy strategic bombardment wings of the Eighth Air Force 3d Bombardment Division in World War II. Groups from "the wing began bombing operations against German occupied Europe on 14 September 1943. Its bombers attacked targets in such German cities as Bremen, Emden, Kiel, Ludwigshafen, Munster, Saarbrücken, Schweinfurt, and Wilhelmshaven. In June 1944 the 45th supported the Allied invasion of Normandy, France, with tactical missions, against enemy airdromes, airfields, bridges, coastal defenses, field batteries, gun positions, and railway junctions."
On 21 June 1944, Colonel Archie J. Old Jr., commanding officer of the 45th Combat Bombardment Wing, served as the task force commander of a shuttle bombing mission to the Soviet Union. The task force raided a synthetic oil plant just south of Berlin, and then proceeded to Poltava in the Soviet Union, where a large number of the 45th's bombers were destroyed on the ground during a raid by German bomber and fighter aircraft. The surviving bombers bombed "an oil plant at Drohobycz, Poland, while returning from Poltava to Foggia, Italy. Shortly before the German surrender, in late April 1945, the wing flew five 'Chow Hound' mercy missions, dropping food and other supplies to the people in [the still occupied western part of the Netherlands]. After the German surrender on 8 May 1945, it helped transport displaced Europeans back to their respective native countries."
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Wikipedia