771st Bombardment Squadron

The squadron was first activated on 1 July 1943 at Smoky Hill Army Air Field, Kansas as one of the four original squadrons of the 462d Bombardment Group, and was intended to be one of the first units to fly the Boeing B-29 Superfortress. However, no B-29s were available to equip the squadron. it moved to Walker Army Air Field, Kansas at the end of the month. At Walker, it received its initial cadre from elements of the 40th Bombardment Group and began to fly a mix of Martin B-26 Marauders and Boeing B-17 Flying Fortresses.[1][2]

The squadron trained with the B-29 at Walker until March 1944, when it departed for its first overseas base, Piardoba Airfield, Bengal, India.[1] Once all elements of the 462d Group had arrived at Piardoba in June, the squadron became part of Twentieth Air Force, which reported directly to Headquarters, Army Air Forces, bypassing theater command. Initially, the squadron's bombers were used to airlift supplies over the Hump to forward bases in China, primarily to one at Chengtu Air Base, which would serve as its primary forward base.[2] It flew its first combat mission, an attack on targets in Bangkok, Thailand on 5 June 1944.[3][4]

Ten days later, the squadron took part in the first attack on the Japanese Home Islands since the 1942 Doolittle Raid. Attacks on Japan required staging through forward bases in China, and it took twelve flights by the bombers to transport enough fuel and munitions to the forward bases to prepare for one attack sortie. This limited attacks on Japan to one in ten days.[2] However, the squadron attacked iron plants, aircraft factories, naval installations, transportation centers and other targets in Japan.[3]

The squadron also attacked targets in Burma, China, Formosa and Indonesia. In August 1944, operating from a staging base in Ceylon (now Sri Lanka), it mined the Musi River in Sumatra. On 20 August, the squadron attacked iron and steel works in Yawata, Japan in a daylight raid for which it earned its first Distinguished Unit Citation (DUC).[3] The Army Air Forces decided to reorganize its very heavy bombardment groups. Although it increased the number of aircraft assigned to each squadron, it reduced the number of squadrons in the group from four to three. The 771st Squadron was inactivated in this reorganization,[1], with most of its crews and planes being distributed to the other three squadrons of the 462d Group.

• 462d Bombardment Group, 1 July 1943 – 12 October 1944[1]

• Smoky Hill Army Air Field, Kansas, 1 July 1943
• Walker Army Air Field, Kansas, 28 July 1943 – c. 12 March 1944
• Piardoba Airfield, India, c. 16 April–12 October 1944[1]

• Martin B-26 Marauder, 1943
• Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress, 1943–1944
• Boeing B-29 Superfortress, 1944[1]

Explanatory notes

Citations

 This article incorporates public domain material from the Air Force Historical Research Agency website http://www.afhra.af.mil/.

• Maurer, Maurer, ed. (1983) [1961]. Air Force Combat Units of World War II (PDF) (reprint ed.). Washington, DC: Office of Air Force History. ISBN 0-912799-02-1. LCCN 61060979. Retrieved 17 December 2016.
• Maurer, Maurer, ed. (1982) [1969]. Combat Squadrons of the Air Force, World War II (PDF) (reprint ed.). Washington, DC: Office of Air Force History. ISBN 0-405-12194-6. LCCN 70605402. OCLC 72556.