United States Air Forces in Europe – Air Forces Africa: Difference between revisions
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Four of these wings deployed to the [[United Kingdom]], three into [[West Germany]], and six wings were deployed to [[France]]. These wings gave USAFE/NATO approximately 500 fighters, 100 light bombers, 100 tactical reconnaissance aircraft. 100 tactical airlift transports, and 18,000 personnel. |
Four of these wings deployed to the [[United Kingdom]], three into [[West Germany]], and six wings were deployed to [[France]]. These wings gave USAFE/NATO approximately 500 fighters, 100 light bombers, 100 tactical reconnaissance aircraft. 100 tactical airlift transports, and 18,000 personnel. |
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Along with these new units from the United States, existing USAFE bases in West Germany were realigned to be moved west of the [[Rhein]] [[River]]. Existing bases in [[Baveria]] (Erding Air Depot, Furstenfeldbruck, Landsberg, Kaufbeuren and Neubiberg Air Bases)were deemed too vulnerable to Soviet attack and were closed by |
Along with these new units from the United States, existing USAFE bases in West Germany were realigned to be moved west of the [[Rhein]] [[River]]. Existing bases in [[Baveria]] (Erding Air Depot, Furstenfeldbruck, Landsberg, Kaufbeuren and Neubiberg Air Bases)were deemed too vulnerable to Soviet attack and were closed by [[1960]]. |
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In [[1955]] the Force Structure was as follows: |
In [[1955]] the Force Structure was as follows: |
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** [[RAF Wethersfield]] 20th Fighter-Bomber Wing |
** [[RAF Wethersfield]] 20th Fighter-Bomber Wing |
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* [[West Germany]]: |
* [[West Germany]]:*** |
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** [[Rhein-Main AB]] 433d Troop Carrier Wing |
** [[Rhein-Main AB]] 433d Troop Carrier Wing |
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** [[Sembach Air Base|Sembach AB]] 66th Tactical Reconnaissance Wing |
** [[Sembach Air Base|Sembach AB]] 66th Tactical Reconnaissance Wing |
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.*** Note: Erding, Fürstenfeldbruck, Landsberg Kaufbeuren and Neubiberg Air Bases, although nominally under USAF control, were being used to train German Air Force pilots. When training was complete, the bases were turned over to West German control by [[1960]]. Erding Air Base was shared by USAFE interceptors briefly in the early 1970's. |
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By the end of the 1950s, USAFEs responsibilities had expanded in Europe and |
By the end of the 1950s, USAFEs responsibilities had expanded in Europe and |
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Revision as of 21:32, 24 July 2006
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The United States Air Forces in Europe (USAFE) is the U.S. Air Force component of U.S. European Command and one of two major Air Force commands outside of the continental United States, the other being the Pacific Air Forces.
USAFE also is the air component of the U.S. European Command, a Department of Defense unified command.
History
World War II
USAFE originated as the United States Army Air Force Eighth Air Force in 1942 and flew heavy bombardment missions over the European continent during World War II.
On 19 January 1944, 8th Air Force was redesignated the U.S. Strategic Air Forces in Europe, responsible for directing operations in Europe and the Middle East. Subordinate units included the newly formed Fifteenth Air Force, organized in Italy to attack enemy territory from the south, and a newly constituted 8th Air Force, formed from the VIII Bomber Command.
On 7 August 1945, the War Department deleted "Strategic" and the command was renamed U.S. Air Forces in Europe.
Postwar Europe
Immediately after the war the primary mission of U.S. military forces in Europe was to disarm Germany, bring peace and economic stability to the German people, and depart as soon as practical. The mission of the United States Air Forces in Europe was to disarm and destroy all Luftwaffe air assets, dispose of excess USAAF property remaining in Europe, and provide airlift to remaining U.S. troops. American combat forces were demobilized as quickly as possible, and by December 1945 only two reduced Army divisions and very few combat aircraft remained in Germany. All of the strategic bombers based in the United Kingdom had been withdrawn, as well as Ninth Air Force tactical fighters that had been based in France.
By the end of 1946 virtually all U.S. armed forces personnel had left Europe except for the Occupation Forces in Germany, Austria, and a small number of Army troops in Italy to control the Trieste problem. The U.S. Military Governor in Germany had grave concerns that there would be insufficient troops to enforce the peaceful transition in his zone of occupation.
The Soviet Union's short-term goals during these immediate postwar years were to force the three western nations out of Berlin and Vienna. Their intermediate goal was to conquer Turkey and Greece through civil wars. The longer term Soviet goal was to force the western powers completely out of Austria and West Germany, eventually making all of Western Europe into communist states.
By 1947 the U.S. had serious concerns that the governments of France and Italy would be taken over by their internal communist political parties. The best option for preventing a communist takeover was to create strong, financially stable countries. To revive the economies of Europe, the United States offered a comprehensive economic aid program in June 1947 known as the "Marshall Plan" named after the Secretary of State, George C. Marshall.
The Marshall Plan achieved great success in Western Europe but the Soviets remained steadfast in their goal of communist domination.
Cold War
Postwar Years
By 1948 Germany had become a major pawn in our effort to prevent the westward march of Communism.
When the Soviet Union blockaded West Berlin in June 1948, the Western Allies answered with the Berlin Airlift. USAFE airlifted more than 2.3 million tons of food, fuel and medical supplies with the aid of the U.S. Navy and the British Royal Air Force. To give armed support to these flights, the command activated the 3rd Air Division in England.
However, the Berlin Airlift taxed existing USAF resources of cargo aircraft, aircraft engines, skilled aircrews, and maintenance personnel. Unfortunately most citizens believed that the vast airpower created during WWII still existed within the new peacetime Air Force. This was a totally false assumption that would be proven during the Korean War.
With the formation of NATOin 1949, the United States was committed to help defend Western Europe and USAFE again strengthened its airpower.
When the Korean War began 25 June 1950, the USAF had been an independent branch of the U.S. military establishment tor less than three years, and was very small and ill equipped for its assigned world-wide missions. Air Force Chief of Staff, General Hoyt S.Vandenburg later stated that in the summer of 1950 we had "a shoestring Air Force" A serious shortage of combat aircraft began to develop by the fall of 1950.
1950s Force Structure
Even with the active war in Korea raging, in the early 1950s Europe received a higher priority of air power than Korea by the Truman Administration and the Department of Defense. Deterring the threat of a Communist takeover of Western Europe was considered more important to our long-term survival than a Communist victory in Korea.
The USAF transferred thirteen combat wings from its Tactical Air Command plus one air depot wing from Air Material Command, and relocated the units to USAFE from April 1951 through December 1954. Eight wings were regular Air Force wings, four wings were federalized Air National Guard units, and one wing was a mobilized Air Force Reserve unit.
Four of these wings deployed to the United Kingdom, three into West Germany, and six wings were deployed to France. These wings gave USAFE/NATO approximately 500 fighters, 100 light bombers, 100 tactical reconnaissance aircraft. 100 tactical airlift transports, and 18,000 personnel.
Along with these new units from the United States, existing USAFE bases in West Germany were realigned to be moved west of the Rhein River. Existing bases in Baveria (Erding Air Depot, Furstenfeldbruck, Landsberg, Kaufbeuren and Neubiberg Air Bases)were deemed too vulnerable to Soviet attack and were closed by 1960.
In 1955 the Force Structure was as follows:
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.*** Note: Erding, Fürstenfeldbruck, Landsberg Kaufbeuren and Neubiberg Air Bases, although nominally under USAF control, were being used to train German Air Force pilots. When training was complete, the bases were turned over to West German control by 1960. Erding Air Base was shared by USAFE interceptors briefly in the early 1970's.
By the end of the 1950s, USAFEs responsibilities had expanded in Europe and eventually to French Morocco, Libya, Saudi Arabia, Greece, Turkey, Italy and Spain.
1960s - 1980s
Beginning about 1963 due to the Vietnam War USAFE/NATO's total strength steadily declined, as the U.S. reduced forces in Europe to fight a limited war in Southeast Asia for ten years.
In 1967 a major reorganization of USAFE was needed after France withdrew from the NATO military command structure, forcing all foreign troops to leave. By 1975 the USAFE Force Structure was as follows:
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AB = Air Base. Flying/Operational base with permanently assigned aircraft.
AS = Air Station. No permanently assigned aircraft, may or may not have a runway and flying facilities.
Changes continued through the early 1970s. Headquarters USAFE transferred from Lindsey Air Station, Germany, to Ramstein Air Base in March 1973 and NATO's Allied Air Forces Central Europe was established at Ramstein Air Base in June 1974. The USAFE commander in chief then took command of Allied Air Forces Central Europe, in addition to commanding U.S. Air Force units in Europe.
The historic Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty, ratified in 1988, mandated the first-ever elimination of an entire class of weapons from U.S. and Soviet inventories. USAFE completed removal of the ground-launched cruise missiles and other weaponry on 26 March 1991, when the last 16 missiles were removed from Comiso Air Station, Italy.
Post Cold-War
Operations Desert Shield/Desert Storm
With the onset of Operations Desert Shield in August 1990 and Desert Storm the following January, USAFE resources mobilized and moved to Southwest Asia.
More than 180 aircraft and 5,400 people assigned to USAFE units deployed to the Persian Gulf area. In conjunction, more than 100 aircraft and 2,600 personnel deployed to Turkey for Operation Proven Force. A total of 60,000 USAFE personnel were committed to the war effort; however, fewer than 10,000 actually deployed. More than half of the command's aircraft deployed to support Desert Storm.
The command's air support was lethal. For example, USAFE accounted for only 20 percent of the air-to-air assets in Desert Storm, but claimed half of the air-to-air kills. Command support personnel shipped 85,000 tons of munitions, including more than 35,000 bombs and 7,800 missiles.
USAFE activated aeromedical staging facilities and contingency hospitals, increasing available bed space 1,500 percent above normal peacetime operations. More than 9,000 patients, mostly suffering from noncombat-related illnesses and injuries, were evacuated to Europe. More than 3,000 were treated at USAFE medical facilities. Almost 7,600 patients were later air evacuated to the continental United States for follow-on treatment.
Operation Provide Comfort
While most of the world celebrated the coalition victory, Kurdish rebels and Iraqi forces were fighting in Northern Iraq. The Kurds began a mass exodus toward Turkey and later Iran. USAFE and U.S. European Command personnel stepped in to save lives during Operation Provide Comfort.
The operation immediately began air dropping food and supplies to the refugees. More than 2,400 USAFE people deployed in support of Provide Comfort, along with 36 fighter aircraft to provide protection for the transports. In a relatively new role, USAFE used A-10 aircraft to spot and mark the pockets of Kurds needing humanitarian relief.
As Operation Provide Comfort drew to a close, Kurdish leaders asked for continued protection from the Iraqi army. Operation Provide Comfort II picked up where the first operation left off, building a multinational rapidly deployable air and ground force in Turkey ready to defend the Kurds.
Balkans Operations
USAFE also provided air protection over the skies of Bosnia-Herzegovina in Operation Deny Flight. Along with allies from NATO countries, USAFE aircrews applied airpower in Operation Deliberate Force, the bombing campaign that paved the way for the 1995 Dayton Peace Agreement. USAFE then helped deploy Peace Implementation Forces and equipment to Bosnia for Operation Joint Endeavor and sustained them by airlift.
USAFE forces again mobilized in March 1999 when NATO intervened in Kosovo to stop Serb repression of the province's ethnic Albanian majority. Efforts to find a diplomatic solution collapsed, resulting in Operation Allied Force – the NATO-led air war over Kosovo. The 78-day operation ended 20 June culminating in the withdrawal of Serb forces from Kosovo and the eventual return of refugees to their homeland. USAFE's 3rd Air Force led Joint Task Force Shining Hope, established to assist the hundreds of thousands of refugees expelled from Kosovo by Serb soldiers and paramilitaries. USAFE continues to contribute to NATO-led forces promoting peace and stability in Kosovo.
Global War on Terrorism
USAFE has been in the front lines of the Global War on Terrorism since 11 September 2001. During Operation Enduring Freedom, it supported an air bridge from Europe to Asia that delivered 3,300 tons of humanitarian daily rations to northern Afghanistan, opened a base in Kyrgystan for coalition forces, and established a medical evacuation network that moved nearly 4,000 patients. USAFE deployed 24 fighter aircraft, eight KC-135 tankers and nearly 2,400 people in Operation Iraqi Freedom. It opened an important airfield in northern Iraq and provided critical en route support to deploying forces, not to mention vital logistical and medical support to forward-deployed forces.
Today, USAFE airmen are engaged in a wide range of active U.S. military efforts in Europe and Africa, including realistic U.S. and NATO exercises and the Global War on Terrorism. The command also plays a major role in furthering democracy in the former Eastern Bloc, as USAFE people take part in Partnership for Peace exercises and Military-to-Military contact programs.
Current Operating Units
USAFE is headquartered in Ramstein Air Base, Germany. The command has five main operating bases along with 80 geographically separated locations.
USAFE is subdivided into HQ Air Command Europe, its wing management command, and Sixteenth Air Force, its Warfighting Headquarters command.
More than 42,000 active-duty, Reserve and civilian employees are assigned to USAFE.
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See also
- United States Air Force In France
- United States Air Force In Germany
- United States Air Force In The United Kingdom