page_title: 63rd Air Expeditionary Wing
section_title: Troop carrier operations
hierarchical_section_title: 63rd Air Expeditionary Wing / History / Troop carrier operations
caption_attribution_description: English: 465th Troop Carrier Group Fairchild C-119G Flying Boxcars taxxing at Évreux-Fauville Air Base, France
context_page_description: The 63d Air Expeditionary Wing is a provisional unit of the United States Air Force. It is assigned to Air Mobility Command to activate or inactivate as needed. No publicly available information indicates it has been active as an expeditionary unit. The wing was last active as the 63d Airlift Wing at Norton Air Force Base, California, where it was inactivated on 1 April 1994.
  The wing was first activated as the 63d Troop Carrier Wing in the Air Force Reserve in June 1949, when Continental Air Command reorganized its units under the wing base organizational model. It was ordered into active duty for the Korean War in May 1951 and, after its personnel were used as fillers for other units, inactivated a week later.
  The wing was activated as a heavy troop carrier unit in 1953 under Tactical Air Command. In 1957, heavy troop carrier units in the United States, including the wing, were transferred to Military Air Transport Service. The unit continued to fly the Douglas C-124 Globemaster II until 1967, when it moved to Norton Air Force Base and began to operate the Lockheed C-141 Starlifter. The wing served as a strategic airlift unit until it was inactivated in 1994.
context_section_description: The wing was activated again as a component of Tactical Air Command (TAC) in 1953.  Its tactical components underwent Douglas C-124 Globemaster II training from June through October 1953. When the wing began global airlift missions, including humanitarian missions, using its C-124s as primary carriers.
  In October 1953, the 465th Troop Carrier Group, which was training at Donaldson with Fairchild C-119 Flying Boxcars and preparing to move to France, was attached to the wing.  The 465th Group's parent wing was located in New York without operational aircraft.  In November 1953, the group moved to Toul-Rosières Air Base and was reassigned.  Another C-119 unit at Donaldson, the 64th Troop Carrier Wing was also attached to the 63d Wing in October.  The 64th Wing was phasing out in preparation for inactivation, and its flying mission was transferred entirely to its 64th Troop Carrier Group, which was also attached to the 63d Wing. In February 1954, the plan to inactivate the 64th was changed and it was instead to transfer overseas.  The 64th Group was reassigned to the 64th Wing, whose attachment ended in March, also ending the 63d Wing's operation of C-119.
  In October 1954, the 309th Troop Carrier Squadron was activated at Donaldson.  Although the squadron was assigned to Eighteenth Air Force, it was attached to the wing for operational control.  The 309th operated Sikorsky H-19 and Piasecki H-21 Workhorse helicopters as an assault troop carrier squadron.  In July 1956, the 309th inactivated and transferred its mission, personnel and H-21s to the 21st Helicopter Squadron, which was activated in its place.  The 21st was also attached to the wing until July 1957, when the wing was transferred to Military Air Transport Service (MATS).
  In August 1954, TAC increased its C-124 operations on the east coast, moving the 61st Troop Carrier Group from Larson Air Force Base, Washington to Donaldson and attaching it to the wing.  When TAC transferred its heavy troop carrier units to MATS, MATS assigned the 61st Group to the wing until the group was inactivated on 8 October 1959.
  Notable operations for the wing included airlifts and airdrops in the North American Arctic during construction and subsequent operation of the Distant Early Warning Line between 1954 and 1956.  In the same region it supported scientific stations on floating ice islands in the Arctic Ocean from 1957 until 1966.  On the other end of the world, it flew airlift and airdrop missions supporting the United States Navy's Operation Deep Freeze in Antarctica from 1956 until 1966.  The wing maintained a complete tactical squadron on rotation to Europe between August 1956 and January 1967.
caption: 465th Troop Carrier Group C-119 Flying Boxcars
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