501st Combat Support Wing

The 501st Combat Support Wing is an administrative support wing of the United States Air Force, based at RAF Fairford, United Kingdom. It is one of three wings located in the United Kingdom as components of the Third Air Force and United States Air Forces in Europe – Air Forces Africa (USAFE).

The first predecessor of the 501st Wing was activated on 1 June 1944 as the 501st Bombardment Group at Dalhart Army Air Field, Texas for training with Boeing B-29 Superfortresses. Its components were the 21st, 41st and 485th Bombardment Squadrons. In August, the 501st Group and its squadrons moved to Harvard Army Air Field, Nebraska and began to equip with Superfortresses. The group completed its training and departed for the Pacific on 7 March 1945.

The group was equipped with the Bell Aircraft manufactured B-29B, which was designed to save weight by removing all of the guns and sighting equipment used on other B-29s, except the tail gun, allowing the B-29B to fly a little higher and a little further. The B-29B also had two new radar units installed, the AN/APQ-7 Eagle radar for bombing and navigation and the AN/APG-15 for aiming the tail gun. These two radar units gave the B-29B a distinctive shape as the APQ-7 antenna appeared as a small wing under the fuselage, between the two bomb bay doors and the APG-15 added a ball shaped antenna to the tail of the aircraft below the tail guns.

The group arrived at its combat station, Northwest Field on Guam on 14 April 1945. It flew its first combat mission on 19 June 1945, attacking Japanese fortifications on Truk. Later that month, on 26 June, it flew its first mission attacking a target in Japan. For the remainder of the war, the 501st operated principally against the enemy's petroleum industry on Honshu. These attacks included missions against the Maruzen oil refinery at Shimotso, the Utsobo oil refinery at Yokkaichi and the petroleum center at Kawasaki during the week beginning on 6 July 1945. For its performance on these missions, the group was awarded the Distinguished Unit Citation.

Following V-J Day, the group dropped supplies to Allied prisoners of war in Japan, Korea, Manchuria and China. It remained at Northwest Field until May 1946, when it became non-operational, and was inactivated there on 10 June 1946.

The second predecessor of the wing is the 701st Tactical Missile Wing, which was activated on 15 September 1956 at Hahn Air Base, West Germany. The first tactical missile wing in the U.S. Air Force when activated, it replaced the 7382d Guided Missile Group (Tactical), which United States Air Forces in Europe had established at Hahn on 1 February 1956. The 701st TMW controlled three tactical missile groups in Germany, each with one missile squadron of TM-61 Matador missiles and a support and maintenance squadron. In turn, the wing was inactivated on 18 June 1958 and replaced by the 38th Tactical Missile Wing.

The 701st was redesignated as the 501st Tactical Missile Wing on 11 January 1982 and consolidated with the 501st Bombardment Group. It was activated on 1 July 1982, at RAF Greenham Common, England, to operate the Gryphon (BGM-109G) Ground Launched Cruise Missile (GLCM). The 501 TMW was inactivated on 31 May 1991 after ratification of the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty resulted in decommissioning of the BGM-109G. The USAF's first GLCM wing when it stood up, it was the also the last GLCM wing to be inactivated.

The unit was redesignated the 501st Combat Support Wing on 22 March 2005 and activated on 12 May 2005 at RAF Mildenhall, England, to manage and support geographically separated USAF units, installations and activities in the United Kingdom not directly supporting operations at RAF Mildenhall or RAF Lakenheath. Effective 1 May 2007, it relocated to RAF Alconbury.