page_title: 2nd Special Operations Squadron
section_title: Inter-war period
hierarchical_section_title: 2nd Special Operations Squadron / History / Inter-war period
caption_attribution_description: Type "R" observation balloon at Arcadia Balloon School, Arcadia, Calif. 1921
context_page_description: The 2d Special Operations Squadron is an Air Force Reserve Command unit, assigned to the 919th Operations Group. Stationed at Hurlburt Field, Florida, the unit operates General Atomics MQ-9 Reaper remotely piloted vehicles.
  The unit is one of the oldest units in the United States Air Force, being formed on 25 September 1917 at Fort Omaha, Nebraska. During World War I, the unit was part of the Balloon Section, American Expeditionary Forces, becoming the first American balloon company to reach the Western Front in France and enter combat. The 2d thus holds the distinction among all USAF units of being "the first complete American air unit in history to operate against an enemy on foreign soil."
  It was part of the Army Balloon School after the war, being a balloon training unit until the beginning of World War II. It was later part of the Strategic Air Command during the Cold War.
context_section_description: On 11 August 1919, the company was transferred to Ross Field, Arcadia, California without personnel or equipment.  The unit was reorganized on 1 October 1921 and redesignated as the Air Service Balloon School Detachment.   However, the Air Service decided to close Ross Field due to the Santa Ana winds, which blew in from the desert. These winds created much havoc with the aerial observation, ground training, and balloon handling.  The detachment was disbanded and the remaining equipment left over from the war and some men were sent to Brooks Field, Texas.  The unit was demobilized on 21 May 1922.
  A new 2d Balloon Company was constituted in the Regular Army on 18 October 1927, as part of the 26th Balloon Group at Fort Sam Houston, Texas.  The company was assigned to the Army's Eighth Corps Area, however it was not activated.  The designation was transferred to the Sixth Corps Area on 1 September 1928, before being organized at Fort Bragg, North Carolina on 29 May 1930. The unit was equipped with type C-3 observation balloons as well as type A-6 and A-7 spherical balloons.  It was consolidated with its World War I predecessor unit on 6 August 1930.
  At Fort Bragg, the unit was redesignated the 2d Balloon Squadron on 1 October 1933, and equipped with C-6 observation balloons in 1938.   It supported activities of the Coast Artillery Barrage Balloon Training Center at Camp Davis, North Carolina, 1940-41. Aircraft reconnaissance technology was making the manned observation balloon obsolete by 1940; the unit was last assigned on 1 September 1941 to I Air Support Command of First Air Force at Pope Field, before being disbanded on 3 February 1942 shortly after the Pearl Harbor Attack.
caption: Type "R" observation balloon at Arcadia Balloon School, Arcadia, California, 1921
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