90th Operations Group

The 90th Operations Group is the operational component of the 90th Missile Wing of the United States Air Force. It is stationed at Francis E. Warren Air Force Base, Wyoming, and is assigned to Twentieth Air Force of Air Force Global Strike Command. The group is responsible for maintaining and operating on alert the wing's assigned LGM-30G Minuteman III intercontinental ballistic missiles.

The Air Force Historical Research Agency traces the unit's origins to the 90th Bombardment Group of the Second World War. From 1942-44 the 90th Bombardment Group flew Consolidated B-24 Liberators to bomb Japanese targets, operating from Australia and then New Guinea. It was awarded two United States Distinguished Unit Citations and the Philippine Presidential Unit Citation for its combat service in China, the Netherlands East Indies, New Guinea, the Bismarck Archipelago, Leyte, and Luzon. It was inactivated in the Philippines in early 1946.

The group was activated in July 1947 at Andrews Field, Maryland by Strategic Air Command (SAC), but appears not to have been manned before inactivating in September 1948. It was again activated by SAC at Fairchild Air Force Base in January 1951 and began equipping with Boeing B-29 Superfortress bombers, but a reorganization the following month reduced the group to paper status until it again inactivated in June 1952.

The 90th Operations Group operates 150 LGM-30G Minuteman III intercontinental ballistic missiles on full alert 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. Its missiles are dispersed in hardened silos over a 9,600-square-mile (25,000 km²) area in three states to protect against attack and are connected to underground missile alert facilities through a system of hardened cables. It is composed of three missile squadrons, an operations support squadron and a standardization and evaluation element. Each missile squadron is responsible for five missile alert facilities and 50 Minuteman III ICBMs. Its units include the 319th, 320th and 321st Missile Squadrons and the 90th Operations Support Squadron.

The group was first organized as the 90th Bombardment Group at Key Field, Mississippi in April 1942 as a Consolidated B-24 Liberator unit. The group's original squadrons were the 10th Reconnaissance Squadron and the 319th, 320th and 321st Bombardment Squadrons, although within a week of activation the 10th was renamed the 400th Bombardment Squadron. The group trained with Liberators in the southeastern United States under III Bomber Command until August.

The group moved to Willow Run Airport, Michigan for conversion training on newly manufactured Ford Liberators. Assigned to VII Bomber Command with B-24Ds, The unit moved to Hickam Field, Hawaii in September. The group arrived in northern Queensland, Australia in November 1942 and began bombardment missions under V Bomber Command almost immediately.

The group attacked enemy airfields, troop concentrations, ground installations and shipping in New Guinea, the Bismarck Archipelago, Palau and the southern Philippines. The group was awarded a Distinguished Unit Citation for operations in Papua through January 1943, The unit participated in the Battle of Bismarck Sea in March 1943, and earned another citation for strikes on enemy airfields at Wewak, New Guinea in September 1943 despite heavy flak and fighter opposition.

During 1944, the 90th supported the New Guinea Campaign through the end of June, then made long-range raids on oil refineries at Balikpapan, Borneo, in September and October. In January 1945, the group moved to the Philippines and supported ground forces on Luzon, attacked industrial targets on Formosa, and bombed railways, airfields, and harbor facilities on the Asiatic mainland. Shortly before the end of the war in the Pacific, the 90th moved to Okinawa, from which it would be able to strike the Japanese home islands.