73rd Bombardment Wing

73d Air Division
73d Air Division Convair F-106A Delta Dart
Active	1943-1943; 1943–1946; 1947–1949; 1957–1966
Country	United States
Branch	United States Air Force
Role	Air Defense
Equipment	see "Aerospace vehicles" section below
Engagements	Asiatic-Pacific Campaign (1944–1945)
Insignia
73d Air Division emblem (approved 9 April 1958)

The 73d Air Division is an inactive United States Air Force unit. Its last assignment was with Air Defense Command at Tyndall Air Force Base, Florida, where it was inactivated on 1 April 1966.

The 73d Bombardment Wing was activated as part of Second Air Force on 17 February 1943. Its original mission was to process personnel assigned to Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress and Consolidated B-24 Liberator Replacement Training Units (RTU) based in the midwest. It was inactivated on 15 October 1943 with the drawdown of heavy bomber training.

The wing was reactivated and redesignated as the 73d Bombardment Wing (Very Heavy) on 20 November 1943 at Smoky Hill Army Air Field, Kansas. The new Boeing B-29 Superfortress wing was assigned four newly organized groups, (the 497th, 498th, 499th and 500th Bombardment Groups) which were training in New Mexico and Arizona with B-17 and B-24s, due to a lack of B-29 aircraft. In April 1944, the groups were brought to several airfields in Kansas (Great Bend Army Air Field, Smoky Hill Army Air Field and Walker Army Air Field) where they were equipped with new B-29s manufactured by Boeing at their Wichita, Kansas plant.

By August the wing's groups completed their training and their aircraft were readied for deployment. Originally assigned to Twentieth Air Force's XX Bomber Command in India, the wing was instead assigned to the new XXI Bomber Command in the Pacific Theater. The 73d Wing deployed to newly constructed airfields on Saipan in the Northern Mariana Islands. The 73d Bomb Wing was the first B-29 wing to be assigned to the Marianas, and the first B-29 of the 497th Bomb Group arrived at Isely Field, Saipan on 12 October 1944. The 498th arrived shortly after, with the 499th and 500th Bomb Groups arriving in early November. By 22 November, over 100 B-29s were on Saipan. The XXI Bomber Command was assigned the task of destroying the aircraft industry of Japan in a series of high-altitude, daylight precision attacks