page_title: 436th Training Squadron
section_title: World War II
hierarchical_section_title: 436th Training Squadron / History / World War II
caption_attribution_description: English: B-24J-185-CO Liberator 44-40852 436th BS 7th BG 1944 Unloading fuel after flying "The Hump" into Kunming, China on September 6, 1944.
context_page_description: The 436th Training Squadron is a non-flying training squadron of the United States Air Force. It is a tenant unit assigned to the 7th Operations Group, 7th Bomb Wing, Dyess Air Force Base, Texas
  The 436th is one of the oldest units in the United States Air Force, first being organized as the 88th Aero Squadron on 18 August 1917 at Kelly Field, Texas. The squadron deployed to France and fought on the Western Front during World War I as a Corps observation squadron.
  On 7 December 1941, elements of the 88th Reconnaissance Squadron were one of the Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress units that landed at Hickam Field, Hawaii during the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. Later in World War II as the 436th Bombardment Squadron, the unit earned the Distinguished Unit Citation and the Presidential Unit Citation for its services in the China Burma India Theater. During the Cold War, it was part of Strategic Air Command equipped with B-52 Stratofortress bombers until its inactivation in 1963.
context_section_description: After the Pearl Harbor Attack, the surviving aircraft operated from Hawaii until February 1942, becoming part of the air defense forces of the Territory.  Moved to Australia with the 7th Bomb Group where the squadron reformed in northern Queensland in late February.  Became part of the new Fifth Air Force.  Moved to Java in the Dutch East Indies an attempt to stop the Japanese advance, however the small force of B-17s could do very little to stem the tide of the Japanese advance, launching valiant but futile attacks against the masses of Japanese shipping and returned to RAAF Townsville in early March.
  Redesignated as the 436th Bombardment Squadron in April 1942 and left its B-17Es in Australia, being reassigned to the new Tenth Air Force in India where it was re-equipped with long-range Consolidated B-24D Liberators.  For the balance of the war, carried out long distance heavy bomb raids over Japanese targets primarily in Burma, Thailand and Indochina; a theater with little news coverage, see China Burma India Theater; although also attacked Japanese targets in Southeastern China attacking airfields, fuel and supply dumps, locomotive works, railways, bridges, docks, warehouses, shipping, and troop concentrations in Burma and struck oil refineries in Thailand, power plants in China and enemy shipping in the Andaman Sea.  (A more complete account is available in Lt Col (Ret) William Henderson's book, "From China Burma India to the River Kwai") Ceased bombing operations in late May 1945 and was attached to the Air Transport Command to haul gasoline from India over the Himalayas to China.  Squadron demobilized in India, leaving B-24s to Indian Colonial forces, inactivated as a paper unit in the United States in early 1946.
caption: 436th B-24J Liberator unloading fuel after flying "The Hump"[note 2]
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