page_title: Continental Air Command
section_title: Post Korea Air Force Reserve
hierarchical_section_title: Continental Air Command / History / Post Korea Air Force Reserve
context_page_description: Continental Air Command was a Major Command of the United States Air Force responsible primarily for administering the Air National Guard and Air Force Reserve.
  During the Korean War, ConAC provided the necessary augmentation to the regular Air Force while it rebuilt itself under wartime conditions. Later, during the 1950s, it was a training force for reservists with no prior military service. ConAC provided peacetime airlift missions for the Air Force. It was mobilized twice in 1961 and 1962 by president Kennedy for the Berlin and Cuban Missile Crisis. Lastly, it was used by president Lyndon B. Johnson for airlift operations into the Dominican Republic and South Vietnam.
  It was inactivated in 1968 and replaced by Headquarters, Air Force Reserve.
context_section_description: On 4 June 1951, Assistant Secretary of the Air Force Eugene M. Zuckert formed a committee under the chairmanship of the Air Force Reserve's General Smith to examine the Air Reserve programs. General Smith was a reservist who had been associated with the Air Training Command during World War TI, had served on several of the Air Defense Command's early reserve boards, and had been the first chairman of the Air Staff Committee on Reserve. Submitting a long-range plan for the Reserve Forces of the United States Air Force on 27 July. General Smith asserted that its adoption would provide a balanced reserve force by 1958.
  The plan provided for 27 Air National Guard and 24 Air Force Reserve tactical wings, 6 Air Force Reserve flying training wings, and almost 1,300 Air Force Reserve nonflying units. This structure would accommodate 250,000 members and provide flying and combat crew training for 38,000 in wing and squadron aircraft. The plan was approved on 9 August.  However, due to the recalls caused by Korea, the Air Force Reserve had no aircraft, and none would be available until July 1952. Upon mobilization in 1950 and 1951, Air Force Reserve units remaining intact had kept their aircraft, while aircraft belonging to the mobilized "filler" units had been redistributed.
  With the post-Korean War expansion of the Air Force, on 24 November 1954, the Joint Mid-Range War Plan identified a D-Day requirement for fifty-one Air Reserve Forces wings.  This was approved on 4 January 1955 by General Nathan Farragut Twining, USAF Chief of Staff.  The contemporary Air Force Reserve of today began with General Twining's resultant statement:
  It is my desire, therefore, that within budget limits and consistent with the policy of attaining and maintaining maximum combat capability within the 137 wing force, all pertinent Air Staff actions be directed specifically toward: fully equipping Reserve units with aircraft capable of carrying out the D-Day mission; provision of adequate facilities and full unit equipment; and supervision and inspection of training programs with an end toward reaching an acceptable degree of combat capability at the earliest practicable date.
  The new mobilization requirement was for twenty-seven Air National Guard and twenty-four Air Force Reserve tactical wings. The latter included nine fighter-bomber, two tactical bombardment, and thirteen troop carrier units.
  The fighter-bomber wings initially would have an air defense role under Air Defense Command and later a tactical fighter role.
  The tactical bombardment and troop carrier wings would be assigned immediately to the Tactical Air Command. As General Twining often pointed out, airlift was one thing the Air Force needed on D-Day, and the thirteen Air Force Reserve wings would certainly add to the force's mobility.
  In addition to providing units to augment the active force for limited or full-scale war, by mid- 1955 the Air Force Reserve had a requirement to provide the Air Force with trained individuals in wartime to augment and replace the attrition in the active force. These personnel were to be recruited, matched against specific wartime requirements, and trained in specific skills.
  Thus provided with an adequate framework of national policy and Department of Defense guidance, ConAC and the major air commands which would gain the Air Reserve Forces units and individuals upon mobilization began to develop the force into a combat-ready mobilization asset.
caption: Lockheed F-80C-10-LO Shooting Star 49-696, currently at the National Museum of the United States Air Force
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