page_title: 857th Bombardment Squadron
section_title: Strategic Air Command
hierarchical_section_title: 857th Bombardment Squadron / History / Strategic Air Command
context_page_description: The 857th Bombardment Squadron is one of the two predecessors of the 557th Tactical Air Support Squadron, an inactive United States Air Force unit, formed in 1985 by the consolidation of the 857th with another inactive bombardment squadron. It has never been active under its most recent designation.
  The 857th was a United States Army Air Forces unit. it was first activated in October 1943 as one of the original Consolidated B-24 Liberator squadrons of the 492d Bombardment Group. After deploying to England, the 492d entered the strategic bombing campaign against Germany, but in three months of combat, the 492d Group suffered the most severe losses of an Eighth Air Force bomber group. The 492d Group was withdrawn from combat in August 1944, and the 857th moved on paper to replace the 850th Bombardment Squadron, which was engaged in Operation Carpetbagger, dropping agents and supplies behind German lines, primarily in France. As American forces advanced in France, this special operations mission diminished. The squadron transported fuel to mechanized units in France, then participated in night bombing. It was inactivated in October 1945.
context_section_description: Starting in 1958, the Boeing B-47 Stratojet wings of Strategic Air Command (SAC) began to assume an alert posture at their home bases, reducing the amount of time spent on alert at overseas bases.  The SAC alert cycle divided itself into four parts: planning, flying, alert and rest to meet General Thomas S. Power’s initial goal of maintaining one third of SAC’s planes on fifteen minute ground alert, fully fueled and ready for combat to reduce vulnerability to a Soviet missile strike.  To implement this new system, B-47 wings reorganized from three to four squadrons.  The 657th Bombardment Squadron was activated at Lake Charles Air Force Base as the fourth squadron of the 68th Bombardment Wing.  The SAC alert commitment was increased to half the wing's aircraft in 1962 and the four squadron pattern no longer met the alert cycle commitment, so the squadron became non-operational on 1 October 1961 and was inactivated on 1 January 1962.
  In September 1985, the 857th Bombardment Squadron and the 657th Bombardment Squadron were consolidated as the 557th Tactical Air Support Squadron, but the consolidated squadron has never been active.
caption: B-47s of Strategic Air Command
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