page_title: 399th Tactical Missile Wing
section_title: Bombardment training
hierarchical_section_title: 399th Tactical Missile Wing / History / Bombardment training
caption_attribution_description: English: B-24 front quarter top, a historic image provided by USAF.
context_page_description: The 399th Tactical Missile Wing is an inactive United States Air Force unit. The unit was formed in 1985 by the consolidation of two inactive units.
  The 399th Bombardment Group was activated in March 1943 and served as an Operational Training Unit, then as a Replacement Training Unit until it was disbanded in March 1944 when the Army Air Forces reorganized its training and support units in the United States.
  The 589th Tactical Missile Group was a TM-61 Matador training unit, which served in Florida from 1957 through 1958.
context_section_description: The wing's first predecessor was the 399th Bombardment Group, which was activated at Davis-Monthan Field, Arizona on 1 March 1943, but made two moves the following month, arriving at Wendover Field, Utah on 27 April.  The group was composed of the 604th, 605th, 606th, and 607th Bombardment Squadrons.  At Wendover, it served as an Operational Training Unit (OTU) for Consolidated B-24 Liberator units until August. The OTU program involved the use of an oversized parent unit to provide cadres to "satellite groups".
  The group became a Replacement Training Unit (RTU). Like OTUs, RTUs were oversize units, however their mission was to train individual pilots and aircrews. Following this mission change, the 399th was reassigned from Second Air Force to Fourth Air Force, then moved to March Field, California in December.
  However, the Army Air Forces was finding that standard military units like the 399th, which were assigned personnel and equipment based on relatively inflexible tables of organization were not proving 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 based on the station's requirements. The 399th Group was disbanded, and along with its elements and supporting units at March was used to form the 420th AAF Base Unit (Bombardment Replacement Training Unit-Heavy).
caption: B-24 Liberator as flown by the group
exif: {}