493d Bombardment Group

493d Bombardment Group
493d Bombardment Group Insignia
Active	1942–1946
Country	United States
Branch	United States Army Air Forces
Role	Bombardment
Part of	Eighth Air Force
Garrison/HQ	European Theatre of World War II

The 493d Bombardment Group is an inactive United States Army Air Forces unit. Its last assignment was to the Army Service Forces, being stationed at Sioux Falls Army Air Field, South Dakota. It was inactivated on 28 August 1945.

During World War II, the group was an Eighth Air Force heavy bombardment unit in England, stationed at RAF Debach. The group flew its last combat mission, an attack on marshalling yards at Nauen, on 20 April 1945.

Established in September 1943 as a B-24 Liberator heavy bombardment group, being activated on 1 November at McCook Army Airfield, Nebraska. The 493d 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.

The origins of the 493d Bomb Group begin as the 13th Antisubmarine Squadron, then retraining as a heavy bombardment unit in B-24s in Pueblo Army Air Base, Colorado. At Pueblo, the unit became identified as the 493rd Bombardment Group and moved to Davis-Monthan Army Air Field, near Tucson, Arizona for additional training. The Arizona crews joined other personnel already assembled in McCook in mid-January 1944. Additional officers and men, chiefly from the 34th Bombardment Group training at Blythe Army Air Base, California, were assigned to the Group in February and March. Intensive training of all airmen and support specialists began in January and was only occasionally interrupted by Nebraska's late winter and early spring storms. Air exercises in several models of B-24s included day and night flights, cross-country navigation, simulated bombing, aerial-gunnery practice, and squadron and group formation flying.