page_title: Mountain Home Air Force Base
section_title: History
hierarchical_section_title: Mountain Home Air Force Base / History
caption_attribution_description: English: Mountain Home AAF, Idaho - June 1945 Source: USAF Mueller, Robert (1989). Active Air Force Bases Within the United States of America on 17 September 1982. USAF Reference Series, Maxwell AFB, Alabama: Office of Air Force History. ISBN 0-912799-53-6
context_page_description: Mountain Home Air Force Base is a United States Air Force installation in the western United States. Located in southwestern Idaho in Elmore County, the base is twelve miles southwest of Mountain Home, which is forty miles southeast of Boise via Interstate 84. The base is also used by the Republic of Singapore Air Force, which has a detachment of F-15SG fighters on long term assignment to the base. They undergo training in combat tactics by U.S. airmen.
  The host unit at Mountain Home since 1972 has been the 366th Fighter Wing of the Air Combat Command, nicknamed the "Gunfighters." The base's primary mission is to provide combat airpower and combat support capabilities to respond to and sustain worldwide contingency operations.
  Constructed in the early 1940s during World War II as a training base for bombers, after the war it briefly had transports, then was a bomber and missile base. It became a fighter base 54 years ago in 1966.
  Part of the base is a census-designated place; the population was 3,238 at the 2010 census.
context_section_description: Crews started building the base in November 1942 and the new field officially opened on 7 August 1943. Shortly thereafter, airmen at the field began training U.S. Army Air Forces crews for World War II. The 396th Bombardment Group (Heavy) was the first unit assigned and its planned mission was to train crews for the B-17 Flying Fortress. However, before the first B-17s arrived, plans for the field changed and the 396th was transferred to Moses Lake AAF, Washington.
  Instead of training B-17 crews, Mountain Home airmen began training crews for the B-24 Liberator. The first group to do so was the 470th Bombardment Group (Heavy), which trained at Mountain Home from May 1943 until January 1944, when the unit moved to Tonopah AAF Nevada. The 490th Bombardment Group (Heavy) replaced the 470th and trained B-24 crews until it deployed to RAF Eye England in April 1944. The 494th Bombardment Group then replaced the 490th, once more training Liberator crews.
  The base was placed in inactive status in October 1945.
caption: Oblique aerial photo in June 1945
  of Mountain Home Army Air Field
exif: {}