312th Fighter Wing

312th Fighter Wing
	Emblem of the 312th Fighter Wing
Active	1944–1945
Country	United States
Branch	United States Army Air Forces
Role	Fighter
Part of	Fourteenth Air Force
Garrison/HQ	China Burma India Theater of World War II
Engagements	World War II Asiatic-Pacific Campaign (1944–1945);

Last updated March 05, 2019

The 312th Fighter Wing was a United States Army Air Forces organization. It was a command and control organization of Fourteenth Air Force that fought in the China Burma India Theater of World War II.

The United States Army Air Forces, informally known as the Air Force, was the aerial warfare service of the United States during and immediately after World War II (1939/41–1945), successor to the previous United States Army Air Corps and the direct predecessor of the United States Air Force of today, one of the five uniformed military services. The AAF was a component of the United States Army, which in 1942 was divided functionally by executive order into three autonomous forces: the Army Ground Forces, the Services of Supply, and the Army Air Forces. Each of these forces had a commanding general who reported directly to the Army Chief of Staff.

The Fourteenth Air Force is a numbered air force of the United States Air Force Space Command (AFSPC). It is headquartered at Vandenberg Air Force Base, California.

History

Lineage

Constituted as 312th Fighter Wing on March 7, 1944.

Activated in China on March 13.

Inactivated on November 5, 1945.

Assignments

Fourteenth Air Force, 13 March 1944 – 1 October 1945.
Army Service Forces, 3–5 November 1945.

The Army Service Forces were one of the three autonomous components of the Army of the United States during World War II, the others being the Army Air Forces and Army Ground Forces. They were created on 28 February 1942 by Executive Order Number 9082 "Reorganizing the Army and the War Department" and War Department Circular No. 59, dated 2 March 1942.

Stations

Kunming Airport, China, March 13, 1944.
Chengtu Airfield, China, c. March 25, 1944 – c. October 1, 1945.
Camp Kilmer, New Jersey, United States, c. November 3–5, 1945.

China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia and the world's most populous country, with a population of around 1.404 billion. Covering approximately 9,600,000 square kilometers (3,700,000 sq mi), it is the third- or fourth-largest country by total area. Governed by the Communist Party of China, the state exercises jurisdiction over 22 provinces, five autonomous regions, four direct-controlled municipalities, and the special administrative regions of Hong Kong and Macau.

Camp Kilmer, New Jersey is a former United States Army camp that was activated in June 1942 as a staging area and part of an installation of the New York Port of Embarkation. The camp was organized as part of the Army Service Forces Transportation Corps. Troops were quartered at Camp Kilmer in preparation for transport to the European Theater of Operations in World War II. Eventually, it became the largest processing center for troops heading overseas and returning from World War II, processing over 2.5 million soldiers. It officially closed in 2009.

New Jersey is a state in the Mid-Atlantic region of the Northeastern United States. It is a peninsula, bordered on the north and east by the state of New York, particularly along the extent of the length of New York City on its western edge; on the east, southeast, and south by the Atlantic Ocean; on the west by the Delaware River and Pennsylvania; and on the southwest by the Delaware Bay and Delaware. New Jersey is the fourth-smallest state by area but the 11th-most populous, with 9 million residents as of 2017, and the most densely populated of the 50 U.S. states; its biggest city is Newark. New Jersey lies completely within the combined statistical areas of New York City and Philadelphia and was the second-wealthiest U.S. state by median household income as of 2017.

Major components

33d Fighter Group, 11 May – 24 August 1944 (P-38, P-47).
81st Fighter Group, 12 May – 1 October 1945 (P-40, P-47).
311th Fighter Group, 18 August 1944 – 1 October 1945 (P-51).

Operations history

Activated in China on March 13, 1944. Assigned to Fourteenth Air Force. Commanded and controlled assigned units in combat in China from July 1944 until August 1945. Moved to the US, October–November 1945 and was inactivated.

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References

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

The Air Force Historical Research Agency is the repository for United States Air Force historical documents. The Agency's collection, begun during World War II in Washington, D.C. and moved in 1949 to Maxwell Air Force Base, the site of Air University, to provide research facilities for professional military education students, the faculty, visiting scholars, and the general public.

Maurer, Maurer (1983). Air Force Combat Units Of World War II. Maxwell AFB, Alabama: Office of Air Force History. ISBN 0-89201-092-4.

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