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376th Air Refueling Squadron (later 376th Expeditionary Air Refueling Squadron)
The unit served primarily as an escort organization, covering the penetration, attack, and withdrawal of
Boeing B-17 flying Fortress and
Consolidated B-24 Liberator bomber formations that the
United States Air Forces in Europe sent against targets on the Continent. The squadron also engaged in counter-air patrols, fighter sweeps, and strafing and dive-bombing missions. Attacked such targets as airdromes, marshalling yards, missile sites, industrial areas, ordnance depots, oil refineries, trains, and highways. During its operations, the unit participated in the assault against the
Luftwaffe and aircraft industry during
Big Week, 20–25 February 1944, and the attack on transportation facilities prior to the
Normandy invasion and support of the invasion forces thereafter, including the
Saint-Lô breakthrough in July.
The squadron supported the airborne attack on the Netherlands in September 1944 and deployed to Chievres Airdrome, (ALG A-84), Belgium between February and April 1945 flying tactical ground support missions during the airborne assault across the
Rhine. The unit returned to RAF
Little Walden and flew its last combat mission on 20 April 1945. Demobilized during the summer of 1945 in England, inactivated in the United States as a paper unit in October.
The 376th Fighter Squadron and 376th Air Refueling Squadron were consolidated into a single unit in September 1985.[3] The consolidated squadron was converted to provisional status and redesignated the 376th Expeditionary Air Refueling Squadron in June 2002.[4]
Lineage
376th Fighter Squadron
Constituted as the 376th Fighter Squadron, Single Engine on 28 January 1943
^
abcDepartment of the Air Force/MPM Letter 662q, 19 September 1985, Subject: Reconstitution, Redesignation, and Consolidation of Selected Air Force Tactical Squadrons
^
abcDepartment of the Air Force/XPM Letter 303s, 12 June 2002, Subject: Air Mobility Command Expeditionary Units
^See Ravenstein, p. 201 (assignment to 376th Bombardment Wing)
Freeman, Roger A. (1970). The Mighty Eighth: Units, Men and Machines (A History of the US 8th Army Air Force). London, England, UK: Macdonald and Company.
ISBN978-0-87938-638-2.