United States Air Force Combat Control Team

A Combat Controller wearing desert digital camouflage during MOUT training

The first course Combat Controller trainees attend after the 8.5-week Basic Military Training at Joint Base San Antonio, Lackland Air Force Base, Texas is Special Warfare Assessment and Selection (SW A&S), Lackland Air Force Base, Texas (4 weeks). For the entire length of the A&S, candidates will be thoroughly evaluated by both the psychologists and cadre in extremely demanding scenarios. A&S is divided into two segments: Field Phase and Selection Phase. Field Phase (2.5 weeks): Candidates can expect to be in a field like setting, sleeping in makeshift lodging in cots with sleeping bags. Training is continuous with zero down days, often experiencing continuous sleep deprivation. Training consists of surface swimming, water confidence, Grass & Guerrilla drills, running, rucking, calisthenics, team events and extended training days. Selection Phase (1.5 weeks): Following the field phase, candidates will begin clean up of the facilities and will be administered academic and psychological tests, surveys, critiques and interviews. Instructors will compile all relevant information and select only those candidates that meet the desired career field attributes.

Special Warfare Pre-Dive (SW Pre-Dive), Lackland Air Force Base, Texas (4 weeks) – This course is designed to prepare the candidates for Special Warfare Combat Dive school. Candidates will be subjected to more technical and difficult water confidence training. As of mid 2019, this course eliminated up to 30% of the A&S graduates.

After the USAF Combat Diver course the trainee attends the Army Airborne School at Fort Benning, Georgia. In the three-week course the trainees learn basic parachuting skills required to infiltrate an objective area by static line airdrop.[2][6]

The next course after Airborne School is the Air Force Basic Survival School located at Fairchild Air Force Base, Washington. SERE School lasts three weeks. The course teaches techniques for survival in remote areas. Instruction includes principles, procedures, equipment and techniques that enable individuals to survive, regardless of climatic conditions or unfriendly environments, and return alive.[2][6]

The next course in the CCT pipeline is the Combat Control Operator Course located at Keesler Air Force Base, Mississippi. The Operator course is 15.5 weeks long. The Operator course teaches aircraft recognition and performance, air navigation aids, weather, airport traffic control, flight assistance service, communication procedures, conventional approach control, radar procedures and air traffic rules.[2][6]

The last course in the Combat Control pipeline is the Combat Control School located at Pope Field, North Carolina. The CCT School is thirteen weeks long and it provides the final Combat Controller qualifications. The training includes physical training, small unit tactics, land navigation, communications, assault zones, demolitions, fire support and field operations including parachuting. Graduates of Combat Control school are awarded their 3-skill level (apprentice) on their Air Force Specialty Code, scarlet beret and CCT flash.[2][6]

After the Combat Controller gains their three level they attend Special Tactics Advanced Skills Training for 12 to 15 months as part of the Special Tactics Training Squadron located at Hurlburt Field, Florida. Advanced Skills Training is a program for newly assigned Combat Controllers, Pararescuemen and Special Reconnaissance. AST produces mission-ready operators for Air Force Special Operations Command and United States Special Operations Command. The AST schedule is broken down into four phases: water, ground, employment and full mission profile. The course tests the trainee's personal limits through demanding mental and physical training.[2][6]

During Advanced Skills Training Combat Controllers (along with Special Reconnaissance) attend two more advanced courses. Army Military Free Fall Parachutist School at Fort Bragg, North Carolina, and Yuma Proving Ground, Arizona for five weeks. The course instructs free fall parachuting procedures. It also provides wind tunnel training, in-air instruction focusing on student stability, aerial maneuvers, air sense, parachute opening procedures and parachute canopy control.[2][6] They also attend Air Force Combat Diver School which is hosted at the Navy Diving and Salvage Training Center, Naval Support Activity Panama City, Florida. Combat Diver School is six weeks long. After completion of Combat Diver School trainees become combat divers, learning to use scuba and closed circuit diving equipment to covertly infiltrate denied areas. The course provides training to depths of 130 feet, stressing development of maximum underwater mobility under various operating conditions.[2][6] A class of CCTs and PJs at the Air Force Combat Diver School was covered by Discovery Channel's program Surviving the Cut during season two, which originally aired 25 July 2011.

Emblem of the USAAF 1st Air Commando Group

The 101st Airborne Division's pathfinder unit setting up radar equipment during the Battle of the Bulge

United States Army pathfinders originated in 1943 during World War II out of need for accurate airdrops after several mishaps occurred in the airborne assault on the Sicilian city of Gela during the allied invasion of Sicily. The 82nd Airborne Division performed a nighttime airborne assault outside of Gela. Due to poor visual references and high winds exceeding 45 miles per hour (72 km/h) two battalions landed 30 miles from their drop zone and a third battalion landed over 55 miles from their drop zone.[9] Undeterred by the flawed airdrop, the paratroopers were still able to hinder the German counterattack to allow for the allies' amphibious assault to gain a foothold on the beach.[10]

General James M. Gavin, who was the Deputy Commander of the 82nd Airborne Division, created the Army Pathfinders to ensure airborne operations are more successful in getting the paratroopers at the designated drop zone. These pathfinders preceded main assault forces into objective areas and drop zones in teams to provide weather information and visual guidance to inbound aircraft through the use of high-powered lights, flares and smoke pots, burning buckets of gas-soaked sand and the Eureka beacon.[2][5] The pathfinder teams consisted of eight to twelve pathfinders along with six soldiers who provided security for the pathfinders while they set up their equipment and aided paratroopers, gliders and planes in reaching their designated drop zones. Pathfinders were first successfully used later in the Sicilian campaign. During the Normandy invasion pathfinders jumped in prior to the main airborne assault force and guided 13,000 paratroopers to their designated drop zones. Pathfinders were used during Operation Market Garden to secure several key bridges required for advancing allied ground units. During the Battle of the Bulge pathfinders enabled an aerial resupply of the 101st Airborne Division.[10][11]

In a history of the 509th Parachute Infantry Battalion's wartime actions titled Stand in the Door! The Wartime History of the 509th Parachute Infantry, authors and 509th veterans Charles H. Doyle and Terrell Stewart provided an alternative history on how the first U.S. Army pathfinder unit was formed.

General James Gavin likes to claim credit for "inventing" Pathfinders, pointing to bad drops in Sicily as the cause. Let us set the record straight: The 509th, the world's most experienced bad drop specialists, first saw the need for them. Pathfinders were separate teams of "advance men" who jumped in ahead of main forces to set up beacons and other guides to incoming aircraft.

The 509th's Scout Company was the first specialized Pathfinder group. In the U.S. Army, it started the training and experimentation necessary to develop the concept at Oujda. With fragments of practical knowledge from the British Airborne, company commander Captain Howland and his XO 1st Lt. Fred E. Perry worked hard to develop usable techniques. Perry recalls: "Everyone knew through hard experience that the Air Corps needed help to drop us on the correct drop zone. We organized the Scout Company for this purpose. This was later made into a Scout Platoon under my command, consisting of 10 enlisted and myself. We were equipped with a British homing radio and U.S. Navy Aldis lamps, which radiated a beam to guide planes. We trained on this procedure until the invasion at Salerno.

In the meantime, the 82d Airborne Division arrived from the States on 10 May and camped near the 509th at Oujda. We were attached to them. The 82d would not buy our Scout Platoon idea, but they sure found out in a hurry after Sicily that we really had something that was needed.

At the time, Major General Matthew Ridgway and his "All-American" staff thought they knew it all. Impressed with themselves, although they were not jumpers or experienced glider troopers, they airily dismissed the 509th and its fresh combat experiences, as well as any nonstandard/Limey concept. They would learn the hard way.[12]

The pathfinders in the Pacific campaign operated slightly differently than their European pathfinder counterparts and pioneered a number of military "firsts". President Franklin D. Roosevelt, amidst the Quebec Conference in August 1943, was impressed by British General Orde Wingate's account of what could be accomplished in Burma with proper air support.[13] To comply with Roosevelt's proposed air support for British long range penetration operations in Burma, the United States Army Air Forces created the 5318th Air Unit to support the Chindits. In March 1944, they were designated the 1st Air Commando Group by USAF General Hap Arnold. Arnold chose Colonel John R. Alison and Colonel Philip Cochran as co-commanders of the Air Commando Group.[14][15]

In 1944 the strategy decided upon by the allied forces for the Burma Campaign consisted of fortified compounds inside Japanese territory due to increasing large Japanese patrols along the border.[16] This change was in part forced upon them by strengthened Japanese patrols along the Burmese frontier, making a repeat of the successful infiltration in 1943 unlikely.[16] In an imaginative move prompted by Colonel Philip Cochran's assurance that he could transport both troops and supplies by glider,[17] Wingate arranged for the bulk of the force to enter Burma by air, greatly accelerating the force's ability to reach its target objectives.[18] The pathfinders would land in gliders in preselected open fields in Burma, and prepare them for large-scale landings by transport aircraft. The air support provided by Cochran and Alison proved critical to the success of the operation.[19] In three months, 600 sorties by Dakota transport aircraft transferred 9,000 troops, 1,300 pack animals and 245 tons of supplies to landing zones across Burma. Many of the soldiers who would later fight in Operation Thursday. The Air Commandos in Burma would achieve numerous military "firsts" such as; ground forces coordinating air strikes via radio, medevacing wounded by air. When the Burma road was reopened in January 1945 the Air Commandos were inactivated in preparation for the invasion of mainland Japan.[15]

The term "Combat Control Team" comes from World War II where allied troop-carrier squadrons developed gliderborne teams called Combat Control Teams. A Combat Control Team consisted of one glider pilot and four enlisted technicians. They utilized a jeep and a trailer-mounted radio to pass critical information to aircraft. The first time they were used was during Operation Varsity in 1945, when two teams with the 18th Airborne Corps infiltrated German lines. They established forward airfields where they supported resupply operations and provided airfield control.[10]

When the U.S. Air Force became a separate service in 1947, Air Force pathfinders were assigned to a provisional Pathfinder Squadron. The Air Force looked for ways to get rid of pathfinders, believing that electronic navigation aids could replace them and the pathfinders role became increasingly neglected by the Air Force. During the Korean War pathfinders were only used in the three main airdrops early in the war. Meanwhile, in Washington D.C. the Air Force and Army leadership were at odds about which service would have ownership of the pathfinder mission. The Department of Defense eventually sided with the Air Force having full control of all air traffic control duties. Despite the resolution the Army never inactivated their pathfinder units which has subsequently become more specialized towards helicopters. After the DOD sided with the Air Force being chosen for the pathfinder mission they expected six teams of pathfinders to be formed from Army-to-Air Force transfers but only got eleven men, enough to form one team. In 1953 the Pathfinder Squadron was discontinued and the pathfinder team was assigned to the 1st Aerial Port Squadron and officially designated a Combat Control Team.[20] The Senior non-commissioned officer of this founding cadre was MSgt "Bull" Benini, he took the lead in establishing the team's new tactics, procedures, organization, and logistics requirements.[21]

The Army and Air Force remained at odds regarding pathfinder and CCT roles. In August 1953 the 10th Special Forces Group refused to allow CCTs to join in their joint tactical missions held at Dobbins AFB, Georgia. As a result, Tactical Air Command stopped all Army airlift missions until the Army allowed the CCTs to take part.[20]

While the career field was still young and lacking in manpower from so few Army pathfinder transfers, Air Force headquarters solicited from the radio maintenance career field for more Combat Controllers. It was also stipulated that Combat Controllers would have to attend air traffic control school if they would be controlling aircraft from the ground. Because of their job, Combat Controllers had to have either an air traffic control AFSC or a radio maintenance AFSC in addition to jump school to become a Combat Controller. This gave rise to blousing trousers and wearing paratrooper boots, a tradition that still exists to the present.[20]

The first time a Combat Control Team was utilized was during the 1958 Lebanon crisis to combat communist expansion and bolster the pro-Western Lebanese government.

Combat Controllers in the Vietnam War on the cover of a 1968 issue of Airman Magazine

As tactical air strikes began to be used in Laos during the Vietnam War, it became apparent that, for the safety of noncombatants, some means of control was necessary.[22] Beginning at least as early as July 1964, the absence of a close air support control system caused a variety of enterprising individuals to improvise procedures for marking bombing targets. At various times, ground markers (including bamboo arrows) and dropped smoke grenades were used. While some of these individuals had military training, such as U.S. Army attaché, others had little or no specialized training in close air support. They varied in nationality, being Thai, Lao, or Hmong, as well as American.[23] Both Continental Air Services, Inc and Air America pilots would sometimes serve as ad hoc forward air controllers.[24]

Later, trained Combat Controllers helped ensure mission safety and expedited air traffic flow during countless airlifts. Combat Controllers also flew as forward air guides in support of indigenous forces in Laos and Cambodia and conducted covert forward air control for U.S. and allied aircraft performing interdiction missions against Communist troops and supplies on the Ho Chi Minh trail. The first combat controller killed in action in SE Asia was TSgt Richard L. Foxx, a seasoned combat controller with more than 15 years experience. On 15 October 1962, Sergeant Foxx was killed while performing Forward Air Control (FAC) duties in a U-10 Helio Courier.[25]

Development of rules of engagement by the Embassy also threw more reliance on increased control over the in-country close air support. So did the introduction of an integrated close air support system for Southeast Asia in April 1966.[26] Beginning in April 1966, as part of its effort to better direct air strikes, the U. S. Air Force installed four tactical air navigation systems in Laos to guide U. S. air strikes. One of these was emplaced on a mountain top at Lima Site 85, aimed across the border at Hanoi, and was the site of a desperate battle in 1968.[27]

The largest single loss of life during the war was on 4 September 1967. Four Combat Controllers, MSgt Charles A. Paradise, TSgt Frederick L. Thrower, Airman 1st Class Gerard Louis Gauthier Jr, and Airman 1st Class William E Jerkins (all of 8th Aerial Port Squadron Combat Control Team 3) and seven other airmen were killed in action when their C-123 crashed.[28]

To begin an operation of great secrecy, the U. S. Air Force originally forwarded four sergeants from Combat Control Teams in 1963. These sergeants turned in their uniforms and military identification and were supplied with false identification so they could work in civilian clothing. This process was designed to preserve the fiction of American non-involvement dubbed plausible deniability. Once "civilianized", the Butterflies flew in the right (co-pilot's) seat in Air America Helio Couriers and Pilatus Porters. They were often accompanied by a Lao or Thai interpreter in the back seat. The Air Commando sergeants directed the air strikes according to U. S. Air Force doctrine, using the radio call sign Butterfly.[29]

Two of the Butterfly Air Force combat controllers were Master Sergeant Charles Larimore Jones, soon joined by Technical Sergeant James J. Stanford.[30] Another of the Butterflies was Major John J. Garrity, Jr., who in future would spend several years as the éminence grise of the American Embassy to Laos.[31] They, and their successors, ran air strikes without notice or objection until General William Momyer discovered that enlisted men were in charge of air strikes; at that point, he ordered their replacement with rated fighter pilots. By that time, the number of Butterflies had escalated to three pairs.[32] Both the impromptu strike controlling and the Butterfly effort ended with General Momyer's tirade in April 1966.[33]

Airman 2nd Class Andre R. Guillet, a "Butterfly" forward air controller, was listed as MIA on 18 May 1966 when the O-1 Bird Dog he and pilot Captain Lee Dufford Harley were in was shot down over Laos.[34][35]

As a result of the Iran hostage crisis, US President Jimmy Carter ordered a rescue mission, code named Operation Eagle Claw, to retrieve the 52 diplomats held captive at the embassy of the United States, Tehran. Three weeks prior to the operation, Air Force CCT Major John T. Carney Jr. was flown in by Twin Otter to Desert One, a staging area in the South Khorasan Province of Iran, near Tabas for a clandestine survey of an airstrip. Despite his two CIA pilots' casual approach to the mission, Carney successfully surveyed the airstrip, installed remotely operated infrared lights and a strobe to outline a landing pattern for pilots, and took soil samples to determine the load-bearing properties of the desert surface. At that time, the floor was hard-packed sand, but in the ensuing three weeks, an ankle-deep layer of powdery sand was deposited by sandstorms.[36][lower-alpha 1] Operation Eagle Claw commenced on 24 April 1980 but encountered many obstacles due to technical issues and weather which led to an accident that killed 8 service members. As a result, the mission aborted.[37] Its failure, and the humiliating public debacle that ensued, damaged US prestige worldwide.[38]

Three years later, Carney, now a lieutenant colonel, was again picked for a high-risk, clandestine, special operation mission two days in advance of the US-led invasion of Grenada. Carey was the ranking officer of a team of Air Force Combat Controllers and Navy SEALs tasked with conducting a reconnaissance of a new airport under construction at Point Salines on the southwestern tip of the Eastern Caribbean island. Their shared mission was to determine how the facility was defended and whether the unfinished runway would support the weight of America military transport planes.[39] They would also set up navigation beacons to guide the transports to the target. On 23 Oct. 1983, a nighttime parachute rendezvous of the SEALs with the four controllers waiting aboard the USS Clifton Sprague off the Grenada coast went awry in bad weather. The weather as well as faulty planning, inadequate equipment and training, and bad luck contributed to the drowning deaths of four of the arriving SEALs. The surviving 20-member joint team made two attempts to reach the island by small boat from the Navy frigate over successive nights, but both attempts were thwarted by more bad weather, bad luck, and equipment problems. The pre-invasion reconnaissance was eventually conducted by an Air Force AC-130 from the air instead.[39]

On D-Day, 25 October 1983, other Combat Controllers jumped into Point Salines at the start of Operation Urgent Fury. They were key to opening the airway for 1st Battalion & 2nd Battalion, 75th Rangers to take the unfinished airport.

Air Force Combat Controllers participating in Operation Enduring Freedom provide air traffic control to a C-130 taking off from a remote airfield.

In 2004 Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld stated "some 85 percent of the air strikes in Operation Enduring Freedom were called in by Air Force Combat Controllers."[5] Combat Controllers have received three of the five awarded Air Force Crosses since the September 11 attacks; they were awarded in 2002, 2008, and 2013 during the American War in Afghanistan.

On 6 October 2009 12 Combat Controllers and Pararescuemen began an 812-mile trek across the Southern U.S. called the Tim Davis/Special Tactics Memorial March. The march was in remembrance of Special Tactics airmen who lost their lives since the Global War on Terror began and to increase awareness about the Special Operations Warrior Foundation which funds the education of surviving children of Special Operations personnel who are killed in action or training. The march began at the Medina annex on Lackland Air Force Base, Texas where the Combat Control career field begins and finished at Hurlburt Field, Florida where they graduate from Advanced Skills Training and become full-fledged Combat Controllers. The airmen marched in two-man teams for 24 hours each carrying 50 lb ruck sacks. The march was completed just ten days later.[40]

Combat Controllers directing air traffic at Toussaint Louverture International Airport in Port-au-Prince, Haiti during the relief efforts of Operation Unified Response.

As part of Operation Unified Response, within 24 hours of the 2010 Haiti earthquake, a team of Combat Controllers from the 23rd Special Tactics Squadron stationed at Hurlburt Field, Florida arrived at Toussaint Louverture International Airport in Port-au-Prince, Haiti. 28 minutes after arriving, the Combat Controllers assumed authority of air traffic control duties to allow planes carrying humanitarian aid to land safely.[41][42] The Combat Controllers directed over 2,500 flights without incident from a card table using only hand radios.[41][43] Under their direction planes were able to take off and land every five minutes, bringing in over 4 million pounds of supplies.[42] As a result of their efforts, the team leader of the Combat Controllers, Chief Master Sergeant Tony Travis, was later recognized as one of Time Magazine's 100 most influential people of 2010.[42][44]

Again in late 2011, 18 CCTs and PJs made the trek from Lackland AFB to Hurlburt Field after losing three airman when their Chinook was shot down in 2011.[45] The airmen walked for 24 hours at a time in three person groups each carrying 50 lb ruck sacks; by the end of the trip the average airman had marched 144 miles.[46]

In June 2014, Combat Controllers were deployed to Iraq as part of the contingent of U.S. military advisors ordered to the country by President Barack Obama in the military effort against the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant.[47]

Former commander of United States Special Operations Command, General Bryan D. Brown, commented on Combat Controllers in a May 2011 interview with the publication, The Year in Special Operations 2011–2012 Edition, stating: "During this kind of warfare [Global War on Terror] the USAF combat controller [CCT/TAC-P] guys really carried an incredible load. During the opening days in Afghanistan, we deployed some SF teams without a CCT, and the difference between those that had controllers and those that didn't was dramatic. Quite frankly no one wants to go to war without them. They are admired, capable, and requested at a rate far greater than we could ever provide. Their efforts were critical in the early days of OEF and still are. Here is another force [whose] true impact on the battlefields around the world will never be known or appreciated. They are absolutely phenomenal."[48]