page_title: 541st Bombardment Squadron
section_title: Heavy bomber training
hierarchical_section_title: 541st Bombardment Squadron / History / Heavy bomber training
caption_attribution_description: English: Alamogordo Army Airfield - B-24 Liberator 42-52161 over New Mexico
context_page_description: The 541st Bombardment Squadron is the former name of the 541st Special Operations Squadron, an inactive United States Air Force unit. During World War II the 541st served as a heavy bomber training unit until inactivated in a general reorganization of Army Air Forces training units. The squadron was redesignated in 1985, when it was consolidated with two other units.
  The first of these was the 161st Liaison Squadron which served as a light aerial reconnaissance and support unit in the United States and Panama from 1944 through 1949. The second was the 1st Tactical Airlift Training Squadron, a reserve unit that trained USAF and allied countries on the Fairchild AC-119 Stinger gunship from 1968 through 1973. The squadron has not been active since consolidation.
context_section_description: The first predecessor of the squadron was the 541st Bombardment Squadron, which was activated at Salt Lake City Army Air Base, Utah as one of the four original squadrons of the 383d Bombardment Group.  Its cadre moved to Rapid City Army Air Base a little over a week later, where it began to equip as a Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress Operational Training Unit (OTU) the following year.  OTUs were oversized parent units that provided cadres  to "satellite groups"
  In October 1943, the squadron moved to Peterson Field, Colorado, where it flew Consolidated B-24 Liberator and changed its mission to become a Replacement Training Unit (RTU).  Like OTUs, RTUs were oversized units, but their mission was to train individual aircrews.  However, the AAF was finding that standard military units like the 541st, which were based on relatively inflexible tables of organization were not well adapted to the training mission.  Accordingly, it adopted a more functional system in which each base was organized into a separate numbered unit, which was manned and equipped for the specific training mission. As a result, the 383d Group, its elements and supporting units were inactivated or disbanded and replaced by the 214th AAF Base Unit (Combat Crew Training School, Heavy), which was simultaneously organized at Peterson.
caption: B-24 Liberator of a training unit in the southwest
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