Ninth Air Force (1942)
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Ninth Air Force |
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|---|---|
 Emblem of the Ninth Air Force in World War II |
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| active | 1942 to 1983 (merged with USCENTAF ) |
| Country |
 United States
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| Armed forces | United States Armed Forces |
| Armed forces | United States Air Force |
| Type | Numbered Air Force |
| commander | |
| Important commanders |
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The Ninth Air Force ( German 9th US Air Force ) was a numbered air force ( English Numbered Air Force ) of the United States Army Air Forces (USAAF) and the resulting United States Air Force during World War II and the Cold War . It emerged from the US Army Middle East Air Force headquarters formed in 1942 and was active in the north-western European theater of war from autumn 1943. After the war she was responsible for tactical fighter units on the US east coast for several decades.
In 1983, the Ninth Air Force became an Air Force component of the United States Central Command under the name United States Central Command Air Forces (USCENTAF). The latter was stationed in the Middle East from 1990 , taking part in operations against Iraq and the war in Afghanistan . Until 2009 the Ninth Air Force was run as USCENTAF or USAFCENT. In a complicated transfer of ancestry, the tradition of the Ninth Air Force, active in World War II and thereafter, was taken over by the United States Air Forces Central alone, and a new Ninth Air Force , which, strictly speaking, has no previous history, was activated on the US east coast.
history
Second World War
Mediterranean, 1942 to 1943
The emergence of the Ninth Air Force goes back to the period shortly after the entry of the United States into the Second World War . After the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, US President Franklin D. Roosevelt ordered retaliatory air strikes against Japan. For this purpose , an air force under Colonel Harry A. Halverson was set up in Fort Myers , Florida, which consisted of around 230 men and 23 B-24D long-range bombers . The unit from which the 376th Bombardment Group was to emerge was given the code name Halpro (for Halverson Project ). She left the United States on May 20, 1942 in an easterly direction with the aim of China in order to bomb the main Japanese islands from there. When she arrived in Fayed, Egypt, her commander was informed that the designated airports had come under the control of the Japanese. At the same time, the Suez Canal was in extreme danger from the German-Italian offensive in North Africa ( Operation Theseus ), which would have had enormous strategic effects. It was therefore decided to leave Halpro in the Middle East to support the British troops in the Africa campaign .
Part of this mission included the first air raid on Ploiesti , when on 11/12. June 1942 the oil plants in the Romanian town of Ploieşti were bombed, the first air raid by US units on Europe. After a few more missions , the US Army Middle East Air Force (USAMEAF) headquarters was formed after the arrival of Lewis H. Brereton from the Far East on June 28 , in which Halpro was sunk next to the B-17 units commanded by Major General Brereton . USAMEAF, which worked closely with the British Western Desert Air Force , was reinforced in August 1942 with the arrival of the 98th Bombardment Group (Heavy) ; further reinforcements followed in the form of the 12th Bombardment Group (Medium) and the 57th Fighter Group . In October 1942, during preparations for the Second Battle of El Alamein , the IX Bomber Command was formed within USAMEAF . One of the first acts after the takeover of the US Army Forces in the Middle East (USAFIME) headquarters by Air Force Lieutenant General Frank M. Andrews on November 4th was the official renaming of USAMEAF to Ninth Air Force on November 12th , consisting of the IX Bomber Command , IX Fighter Command and IX Air Service Command . The IX Fighter Command was also reinforced by the 79th Fighter Group relocated from the USA .
On December 4, 1942, Ninth Air Force B-24s flew the USAAF's first attack on Italy, targeting Naples , damaging port facilities and several ships. Meanwhile, medium bombers of the type B-25 and P-40 fighter aircraft of the Ninth AF repeatedly intervened in the retreat battles of the defeated Africa tank army through Libya . On December 15, a Tunisian port, Sfax, was attacked for the first time . The following day three squadrons of the 93d Bombardment Group (Heavy) reached Gambut in Libya to be subordinate to the IX Bomber Command. A little later, the 324th Fighter Group, which had arrived from the USA, was placed under the IX Fighter Command . Attacks against Crete were also carried out by the IX Bomber Command during this period .
From March 1943, units of the Ninth Air Force were deployed from Tunisian airfields in the Tunisian campaign. After the German surrender in Tunisia on May 12, attacks on Pantelleria followed in preparation for Operation Corkscrew , which took place on June 10, 1943. After the capture of this island and Lampedusa , they were used by aircraft of the Northwest African Air Force to prepare for the next stage of the Italian campaign , the invasion of Sicily .
Soon after the landings in Sicily, the first units of the Ninth Air Force were relocated to captured airfields on the island. P-40s mainly flew attacks against ship and transport targets from the island. On August 1, 1943, Ninth Air Force 177 B-24s flew from Benghazi in one of the largest long-range attacks to date, Operation Tidal Wave , against Romanian oil fields. The first US air raid on Austria followed on August 13, when 61 B-24s attacked the Wiener Neustädter Flugzeugwerke . After the last units of the Axis powers withdrew from Sicily, the heavy units increasingly attacked airfield targets near Foggia in preparation for the invasion of mainland Italy .
On August 22, in preparation for the relocation of the Ninth Air Force to Great Britain, all fighter and medium bomber units of the Ninth Air Force were placed under the Twelfth Air Force . The majority of the heavy bomber units were subsequently withdrawn to Great Britain.
Northwest Europe, 1943 to 1945
On October 16, 1943, the new Ninth Air Force was constituted in the United Kingdom, which was formed from levies from the Eighth Air Force and was to be responsible for the tactical air support of the Allied ground forces alongside the British 2nd Tactical Air Force . General Brereton retained the command. In the winter of 1943/44 the air fleet was expanded at an enormous pace, so that at the beginning of Operation Overlord it had around 5,000 aircraft and 170,000 personnel. Her main tasks during this period were to support the preparations for Overlord by gaining air supremacy over northern France, deployments against transport targets and positions of the Atlantic Wall as well as deployments as part of Operation Crossbow against German V-weapons systems. On December 15, the Allied Expeditionary Air Force (AEAF) headquarters under the British Trafford Leigh-Mallory took over tactical control of the Ninth Air Force.
During the reorganization of the Ninth Air Force, the IX Troop Carrier Command was formed to transport the US airborne troops for the invasion of the continent. On January 4, 1944, the XIX Air Support Command was formed on RAF Middle Wallop (later renamed XIX Tactical Air Command ). This resulted in the following organization on the eve of the invasion:
- 10th Photographic Reconnaissance Group
- IX Bomber Command (Major General Samuel E. Anderson )
- 97th Bombardment Wing (Light)
- 98th Bombardment Wing (Medium)
- 99th Bombardment Wing (Medium)
- IX Tactical Air Command (Major General Elwood Richard Quesada ; intended to provide air support to the 1st U.S. Army )
- 70th Fighter Wing
- 71st Fighter Wing
- 84th Fighter Wing
- 67th Tactical Reconnaissance Group
- XIX Tactical Air Command (Major General Otto P. Weyland ; intended for air support of the 3rd US Army )
- 100th Fighter Wing
- 303rd Fighter Wing
- IX Troop Carrier Command (Major General Paul L. Williams )
- 50th Troop Carrier Wing
- 52nd Troop Carrier Wing
- 53rd Troop Carrier Wing
- IX Troop Carrier Pathfinder Group (Provisional)
- IX Air Force Service Command
- IX Engineer Command
- IX Air Defense Command
On D-Day , June 6, 1944, units of the IX Troop Carrier Command flew over 2,000 sorties to carry out the air landings of the 82nd and 101st Airborne Divisions . Fighter-bombers and light and medium bombers of the types P-47 , P-51 , A-20 , B-25 and B-26 flew attacks against German positions, while the air superiority over the invasion beaches was ensured by twin-engine P-38 . The landings of the ground troops were soon followed by the first support units of the Ninth Air Force and, after the construction or capture of airfields, also flying units. The Ninth Air Force supported the ground forces in the Battle of Cherbourg , the advance through the Bocage landscape and the eventual breakout from the landing beachhead in Operation Cobra . She also supported the British in the Battle of Caen . Advanced tactics and measures of ground-air coordination were used, which paid off in the Falaise pocket. Since the activation of the 12th Army Group on the continent in early August, supporting it has been the main task of the Ninth Air Force. General Brereton was at the same time in command of the 1st Allied Airborne Army and was replaced by Hoyt S. Vandenberg .
The Battle of Normandy was followed by the Battle of Brittany and the pursuit of the German troops through northern France and the basin of Mons . However, the rapid advance overwhelmed the Allied logistics system, which also limited the effectiveness of the air operations. In the primarily British Operation Market Garden , the largest air landing of the war, aircraft of the IX Troop Carrier Command were also involved. After the start of the deployment of the 9th US Army on the Western Front at the end of September 1944, the XXIX Tactical Air Command was formed within the Ninth Air Force to support it.
In early November, large-scale air strikes by the XIX TAC began in support of General Patton's forces in the battle for Metz . After that, the weather was bad until December, which allowed only a few missions. Further north, the IX and XXIX TAC supported the advance of the 1st US Army in the Battle of the Huertgen Forest . On December 16, the American armed forces were surprised by the German Ardennes offensive despite the available reconnaissance results. Bad weather initially prevented the Allied tactical air fleets from being used effectively, but in the following period they played a decisive role in gaining air superiority and pushing back the German troops.
In February and March 1945, Ninth Air Force deployments followed in Operations Grenade , Lumberjack and Undertone . As part of Operation Plunder Allied airborne forces led with the support of the IX Troop Transport Command the Operation Varsity by. After crossing the Rhine, there was a rapid advance through Germany, which ended with the German surrender.
post war period
After the end of the war, the Ninth Air Force was quickly demobilized. Most of their units were moved back to the USA and disbanded there, some remained in Germany for occupation purposes and some transport units were stationed in France. On December 2, 1945, the Ninth Air Force was deactivated in the headquarters of the United States Air Forces in Europe, which had now been formed, in Wiesbaden .
As early as March 28, 1946, the reactivation took place at Biggs Army Airfield in Texas. After some relocations of the headquarters in August 1954 the Shaw Air Force Base in South Carolina was moved. The Ninth Air Force was subordinate to the Tactical Air Command and was responsible for the states east of the Mississippi . She was often called in on missions in support of NATO allies, for example during the Lebanon crisis in 1958 and the Berlin crisis in 1961. During the Cuba crisis in 1962, the Ninth Air Force was put on high alert.
During the Vietnam War , various units of the Ninth Air Force were temporarily detached and deployed in the area of responsibility of the Pacific Air Forces in Southeast Asia. In 1980 parts of the Ninth Air Force were assigned to the Rapid Deployment Joint Task Force , from which the United States Central Command emerged in 1983 . Within this, the USCENTAF existed as a sub-command, whose commander until 2009 was also the commander of the Ninth Air Force. The Ninth Air Force tradition was then carried over to the United States Air Forces Central , while a new Ninth Air Force was formed at Shaw AFB.
See also
literature
- Richard H. Kohn, Joseph P. Harahan (Eds.): Condensed Analysis of the Ninth Air Force in the European Theater of Operations: An Analytical Study of the Operating Procedures and Functional Organization of Tactical Air Power as Developed by the Ninth Air Force in the War of Western Europe. (Reprint) Office of Air Force History, Washington DC 1984.
- Maurer Maurer: Air Force Combat Units of World War II. Office of Air Force History, Washington DC 1983.
- Grégory Pons: 9th Air Force: American Tactical Aviation in the ETO, 1942-1945. Histoire & Collections, Paris 2008, ISBN 978-2-35250-077-3 .
- Kenn C. Rust: The 9th Air Force in World War II. Aero Publishers, 1967.
Web links
- The USAAF in WW II (Chronology, English)
Individual evidence
- ↑ United States Ninth Air Force ( Memento of the original from January 1, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. on raf.mod.uk
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