419th Flight Test Squadron

The squadron was first organized as the 29th Reconnaissance Squadron a Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress squadron in February 1942. In April 1942, it became the 419th Bombardment Squadron, a heavy bomber. It trained under Second Air Force. It flew antisubmarine patrols off the California coast from late May to early June 1942, then over the Mid-Atlantic coast during June and July 1942.[2]

It deployed to European Theater of Operations in August 1942, being assigned to VIII Bomber Command, one of the first B-17 heavy bomb squadrons assigned to England. It engaged in strategic bombardment operations over Occupied Europe, attacking enemy military and industrial targets. It moved to the Mediterranean Theater of Operations as part of Operation Torch, the invasion of North Africa. It operated from desert airfields in Algeria and Tunisia during North African and Tunisian campaign. It became part of Northwest African Strategic Air Force during Invasion of Sicily and later Italy in 1943. It was part of Fifteenth Air Force for the strategic bombing of Nazi Germany and occupied Europe. It attacked enemy targets primarily in the Balkans; Southern France; Southern Germany and Austria from southern Italy. It engaged in shuttle bombing missions to airfields in the Soviet Union during the summer of 1944.[3][4]

Its personnel largely demobilized after German capitulation in May 1945. The squadron moved to the United States and was programmed for conversion to Boeing B-29 Superfortress operations and deployment to Pacific Theater, plans canceled after Japanese capitulation in August 1945. Its aircraft were sent to storage and unit inactivated largely as a paper unit in October 1945.[2][5]

From 1958, the Boeing B-47 Stratojet wings of Strategic Air Command (SAC) began to assume an alert posture at their home bases, reducing the amount of time spent on alert at overseas bases. The SAC alert cycle divided itself into four parts: planning, flying, alert and rest to meet General Thomas S. Power's initial goal of maintaining one third of SAC’s planes on fifteen minute ground alert, fully fueled and ready for combat to reduce vulnerability to a Soviet missile strike.[6] To implement this new system B-47 wings reorganized from three to four squadrons.[6][7] The 419th was activated at Lockbourne Air Force Base as the fourth squadron of the 301st Bombardment Wing. The alert commitment was increased to half the squadron's aircraft in 1962 and the four squadron pattern no longer met the alert cycle commitment, so the squadron was inactivated on 1 January 1962.[7]

The 6519th Flight Test Squadron activated at Edwards Air Force Base in October 1989, taking over the Air Force Flight Test Center's Strategic Systems Division (B-52G/H Stratofortress). It also operated Unmanned Aeria Vehicle test program MQ-1 Predator 1994–2000 when the UAV program was realigned. It gained the Rockkwell B-1 Lancer program from the 6510th Flight Test Squadron in 1991. In October 1992, the 6519th was consolidated with the 419th, with the consolidated unit assuming the designation of 419th Test Squadron. It added the B-2 Spirit program from the inactivating 420th Flight Test Squadron on 30 December 1997.[8]

The squadron also hosts the C-12 Huron Formal Training Unit.

• 301st Bombardment Group, 3 Feb 1942 – 15 Oct 1945
• 301st Bombardment Wing, 1 Dec 1958 – 1 Jan 1962
• 6510th Test Wing (later 412th Test Wing), 10 March 1989
• 412th Operations Group, 1 Oct 1993 – present[1]

 This article incorporates public domain material from the Air Force Historical Research Agency.

• Freeman, Roger A. (1978) Airfields of the Eighth: Then and Now. After the Battle ISBN 0-900913-09-6
• 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.
• 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.
• Millet, Jeffrey R. The Fifteenth Air Force Story: A History 1943–1985. Fifteenth Air Force Association, 1986.
• John Pimlott, B-29 Superfortress, Gallery Books, 1980.
• Rogers, Brian. (2005). United States Air Force Unit Designations Since 1978. Hinkley, UK: Midland Publications. ISBN 1-85780-197-0.
• Schake, Col Kurt W. (1998). Strategic Frontier: American Bomber Bases Overseas, 1950–1960 (PDF). Trondheim, Norway: Norwegian University of Science and Technology. ISBN 978-8277650241. Retrieved 27 July 2015.