page_title: 38th Bombardment Group
section_title: Creation, training, and overseas movement
hierarchical_section_title: 38th Bombardment Group / Operations / World War II / Creation, training, and overseas movement
caption_attribution_description: Martin B-26B Marauder (s/n 41-17704).
context_page_description: The 38th Bombardment Group is an inactive unit of the United States Air Force. It was most recently assigned as the operational component of the 38th Bombardment Wing, stationed at Laon-Couvron Air Base, France, where it was inactivated on 8 December 1957.
  During World War II the 38th Bomb Group was a medium bombardment group operating in the Southwest Pacific Area as a B-25 Mitchell unit assigned to Fifth Air Force. It was one of the first combat organizations of the United States Army Air Forces to be deployed to the Pacific Theater when elements took part in the June 1942 Battle of Midway using the Martin B-26 Marauder medium bomber. Operating in separated echelons until February 1943, the group was re-organized in April 1943 into a standardized B-25 unit. At the conclusion of World War II, the group converted to the A-26 Invader medium bomber.
  The 38th Bomb Group was awarded four Distinguished Unit Citations for its combat service in Papua; New Britain; New Guinea; and Leyte. It also received recognition from the government of the Philippines with an award of the Philippine Presidential Unit Citation.
context_section_description: The 38th Bombardment Group (Medium) was constituted on 20 November 1940 by War Department General Order AG 320.2, and activated on 15 January 1941 at Langley Army Air Base, Virginia, by the 2nd Wing, GHQ Air Force. Its original cadre consisted of seven officers and 112 enlisted men transferred from the 22d Bombardment Group to administratively organize the group. Its original assigned flying squadrons were the 69th, 70th and 71st Bomb Squadrons, with the 15th Reconnaissance Squadron activated at the same time and attached.
  In the first week of June 1941 the group transferred to Jackson Army Air Base, Mississippi to receive an influx of personnel just graduated from technical schools and to train a large levy of drafted enlisted men, mostly from Pennsylvania, fresh out of basic training. The first combat crews joined the group on 2 September, consisting of 30 newly commissioned pilots of Randolph Field Pilot Training Class 41-F, who began group training in seven B-18s and two PT-13 Kaydets. The next month the group began receiving new B-26 Marauders, and by 1 December 1941 each bomb squadron had 13 assigned. The first loss of an aircraft was 69th BS B-26 40-1472 in a landing accident at Jackson AAB, with all six crewmen killed, on 21 December 1941.
  The German U-boat threat to Allied shipping earmarked the group for assignment to anti-submarine warfare patrols from a base in South America. Orders to transfer the group to Savannah AAB, Georgia, as the first step in the process, were rescinded when the United States was drawn into the war on 7 December 1941. Instead the group remained at Jackson until 18 January when its ground echelon entrained for movement to a port of embarkation at San Francisco, California, where it was quartered in the Cow Palace.
  On 29 January the ground echelon boarded the Army transport USAT Tasker H. Bliss, formerly the Dollar Liner SS President Cleveland. The Bliss left in convoy from San Francisco on the 31st and arrived at Brisbane, Australia on 25 February 1942. On that date the 15th Reconnaissance Squadron was assigned as the group's fourth squadron, and re-designated the 405th Bomb Squadron on 22 April 1942.
  The ground personnel of the group were employed as service and construction troops, working at various bases until assignment to Charters Towers on 2 August. The advance party, however, found that the 3rd Bomb Group and its A-20 Havocs occupied all the desirable space and established a camp at Breddan on 7 August. The ground element of the 71st BS moved to Batchelor Field, Darwin, on 1 May to act as a service squadron for the 19th Bomb Group, which had been compelled to evacuate its B-17s from the Philippines by Japanese advances. On 12 August it rejoined the group at Breddan.
  The air echelon did not accompany the sea movement and was quartered at Fort McDowell, California, until 6 April, when it moved by train to Patterson Field, Ohio, to continue B-26 training. On 8–7 May, the 69th and 70th BS flew new B-26Bs to California for movement to Hawaii, while the 71st and 405th began receiving B-25 Mitchell bombers for training. The 71st moved to MacDill AAB where it exchanged its experienced B-26 crews for those of the 21st Bomb Group (a unit converting to B-26s), which were entirely newly graduated pilots from Shafter Field Pilot Training Class 42-E. The 405th flew to Barksdale Field, Louisiana, to exchange crews with the 17th Bomb Group, which was converting to B-26s because a large portion of its B-25s had been lost on the Doolittle Raid. These novice pilots and crews became the core of the group's combat crews for the next 15 months.
caption: Martin B-26 Marauder
exif: {"Image Orientation": "Horizontal (normal)", "Image XResolution": "144", "Image YResolution": "144", "Image ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Image Software": "Adobe Photoshop 7.0", "Image DateTime": "2004:05:02 22:56:43", "Image ExifOffset": "156", "Thumbnail Compression": "JPEG (old-style)", "Thumbnail XResolution": "72", "Thumbnail YResolution": "72", "Thumbnail ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormat": "294", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormatLength": "2645", "EXIF ColorSpace": "Uncalibrated", "EXIF ExifImageWidth": "614", "EXIF ExifImageLength": "330"}