492d Bombardment Group

492d Bombardment Group
Emblem of the 801st(P)/492d Bombardment Group
Active	1943-1945
Country	United States
Branch	United States Air Force
Role	Bombardment, Special Operations

The 492d Bombardment Group is an inactive United States Army Air Forces unit. It was last assigned to the Second Air Force, stationed at Kirtland Field, New Mexico. It was inactivated on 17 October 1945.

During World War II the unit entered combat in May 1944, and sustained the heaviest losses of any other B-24 Liberator group for a three-month period. The group was withdrawn from combat with its personnel and equipment being reassigned to other units. The 801st Bombardment Group (Provisional) was redesignated as the 492d Bombardment Group, and the group performed special operations missions throughout the remainder of the war in Europe.

Established in October 1943 at Clovis Army Air Field, New Mexico under II Bomber Command as a B-24 Liberator heavy bomb group. The 492d was one of seven Heavy Bombardment Groups – 488th through 494th - activated in the autumn of 1943. These were to be the last Army Air Forces heavy bomb groups established. Reassigned to Alamogordo Army Airfield with a full complement of 72 crews and 72 brand new B-24's and trained there until the end of March 1944.

Was deployed to the European Theater of Operations (ETO), being assigned to VIII Bomber Command in England. Only a small part ground unit (124 men) from US left Alamogordo on 11 April 1944 and sailed on the RMS Queen Elizabeth 20 April 1944. Main body of ground echelon from four 2 Bombardment Division groups were already in the UK. These groups had been ordered to raise additional squadron ground unit. The aircraft left Alamogordo on 1 April 1944, to commence overseas movement by the South Atlantic Transport Route, beginning at Morrison Field, Florida, Trinidad, Brazil, Dakar and Marrakesh, French Morocco then to the United Kingdom. When the group arrived, they were the first VIII BC group with a no camouflage paint, natural-metal-finish (NMF) on all their aircraft.