414th Fighter Group The 414th Fighter Group ( 414 FG ) is an Air Reserve Component ( ARC ) of the United States Air Force . It is assigned to the 482d Fighter Wing , Tenth Air Force , Air Force Reserve Command , stationed at Seymour Johnson Air Force Base , North Carolina . The 414 FG is an associate unit of the 4th Fighter Wing , Air Combat Command ( ACC ) and if mobilized the wing is gained by ACC . Overview . The group was reactivated as an Air Force Reserve Command associate unit in July 2010 . The role of the new group is to help Seymour Johnson AFB , NC produce more qualified F - 15E aircrew and provide skilled maintainers to assist in the maintenance of the F - 15E aircraft . History . World War II . Constituted as 414th Fighter Group on 5 October 1944 and activated on 15 October . Equipped with P - 47 Thunderbolts . Most of the pilots had been flying Curtiss P - 40s at Harris Neck Army Air Field , Georgia . The group consisted of three squadrons , the 413th , 437th and 456th . In November 1944 the group relocated to Selfridge Field , Michigan where they transitioned into long - range P - 47N Thunderbolts . On 19 March 1945 , the Group relocated to Bluethenthal Field , North Carolina in preparation for their departure to the Pacific war zone . An advance echelon went on ahead by ship , in May 1945 and two shipments went on converted aircraft carriers carrying the P - 47Ns ( 109 of them ) . The first carrier was the USS Cape Esperance , with personnel and 49 planes aboard , which shipped over in early June . The 414th Group was assigned to the Twentieth Air Force VII Fighter Command , 301st Fighter Wing . The second aircraft carrier , the C . V . E . Casablanca , with 49 planes on the flight deck and 11 on the hangar deck , and personnel , departed 7 July 1945 and arrived at Guam 22 July 1945 . The earlier carrier group ( BX Shipment ) , based temporarily on Guam , went on two missions to Truk , one of the Carolines , on 13 and 22 July . They had had reports that the Japanese were hiding planes but there were none seen : one man was lost on one of the missions . Those already on Iwo Jima began operations in late July with an attack against a radar station on Chichi Jima . Operations during August were directed primarily against enemy airfields in Japan but the group also strafed hangars , barracks , ordinance dumps , trains , marshalling yards and shipping . One such raid , on 1 August , was to Okazaki but due to a heavy overcast the ground was not visible so a secondary target , Nagoya East , was approached . It was barren of both planes and personnel ; some of the buildings were strafed . The line of retirement took the group over the primary target , Okazaki , and there were no aircraft visible there either . Specially - assigned B - 29 Superfortress navigation " pathfinders " led the Thunderbolts to and from Japan ; even so , not every fighter could rendezvous on time for the return journey . It was a daunting prospect for the pilot who had to find his own way back 600 miles to a small island in a vast ocean . On return from another of the Group ' s first operations over Kyūshū on 8 August , in support of B - 29s bombing Yawata , the fuel supplies of several Thunderbolts were exhausted , due to siphoning , and pilots had to bail out in the vicinity of US warships patrolling the mission flight lanes . Lt . Robert Dunnavant , piloting a 437th Fighter Squadron P - 47N , spent the astonishing period of 8 hours and 45 minutes in the air . His aircraft ' s fuel tanks were so depleted when he eventually reached Iwo Jima , that he dared not try to reach his base at North Field , landing instead at a small US Navy airstrip he located on the coast . On 12 August 1945 , the second carrier group took off from Guam for Iwo Jima with B - 29s as navigational planes , but they ran into severe weather and had to abort to Tinian and Saipan . One pilot , Roy Abbott , spun out of the weather and crashed to the ocean in flames . Another , George W . Caka , continued on through the weather on his own and wound up over the 3rd Fleet , 300 miles N . E . of Iwo . He bailed out and was picked up out of the ocean unconscious ; he too died , and was buried at sea . On 16 August , the second carrier group again departed from Guam , where they had re - gathered , and flew the 720 miles to Iwo . Further missions to the Empire were planned but were called off shortly before their departure times . One final mission was flown over Japan , on 30 August 1945 , three days before the 2 September V - J day . The planes , B - 29s and P - 47s arrived at the same time the first wave was going into the mainland and the treaty was being finalized by MacArthur on the Missouri . As a show of force , a low , aggressive flyby over Tokyo and the surrounding area was undertaken . In total , the Group went on five missions to " the Empire " from Iwo ( including this last one ) and two to Chichi Jima . The group was reassigned to 13th Air Force at Clark Field in the Philippines in late December 1945 . The relocation from Iwo was made with a brief stopover in Okinawa . The Group flew P - 47Ns and P - 51s in early 1946 , and then a few P - 80 Shooting Stars . In mid - 1946 the group was inactivated . Air Defense Command . The group was reactivated in 1955 as an Air Defense Command fighter group as part of Project Arrow , which was designed to bring back on the active list the fighter units which had compiled memorable records in the two world wars . It assumed the mission , personnel , and equipment of the 533d Air Defense Group , which was simultaneously inactivated . The group became part of Western Air Defense Force , flying F - 94 Starfire interceptors . Over the years upgraded to F - 89 Scorpions ; F - 101B Voodoos , and finally the F - 106 Delta Darts . Inactivated in 1969 when ADC closed Oxnard AFB and sharply reduced its interceptor force . Air Force Reserve . Once again reactivated in 2010 as an associate fighter group with the 4th Fighter Wing of Air Combat Command , once again at Seymour Johnson AFB , North Carolina . This time to train aircrew and assist in maintaining the F - 15E . Lineage . Subordinate Units . Operational Squadrons Support Units