456th Fighter-Interceptor Squadron
The 456th Fighter-Interceptor Squadron is an inactive United States Air Force unit. Its last assignment was with the Air Defense Command San Francisco Air Defense Sector stationed at Oxnard Air Force Base, California. It was inactivated on 18 July 1968. History. World War II. It was established in late 1944 as a very long range Republic P-47N Thunderbolt fighter squadron. It trained under III Fighter Command. The 456th was deployed to Pacific Theater of Operations, and assigned to XXI Bomber Command as a long-range escort squadron for B-29 Superfortress bombers engaged in the strategic  bombardment of Japan, based on Iwo Jima. After the Japanese capitulation, it was moved to Luzon where the squadron was demobilized; the P-47Ns were returned to storage depots in the United States. It was inactivated as a paper unit in 1946. Cold War Air Defense. It was reactivated in 1954 under Air Defense Command as an air defense interceptor squadron, and stationed at Truax Field, Wisconsin for the air defense of the Great Lakes. It was equipped with North American F-86D Sabres. In August 1955 the unit was inactivated, and was reactivated at Castle Air Force Base, California in October  1955 with North American F-86D Sabres. In 1957 it began re-equipping with the North American North American F-86L Sabre, an improved version of the F-86D which incorporated the Semi Automatic Ground Environment, or SAGE computer-controlled direction system for intercepts. The service of the F-86L was brief, since by the time the last F-86L conversion was delivered, the type was already being phased out in favor of supersonic interceptors. The squadron upgraded in June 1958 into supersonic Convair F-102A Delta Daggers. In September 1959 it received Convair F-106 Delta Darts. On 22 October 1962, before President John F. Kennedy  told Americans that missiles were in place in Cuba, the squadron dispersed one third of its force, equipped with nuclear tipped missiles to Fresno Air Terminal at the start of the Cuban Missile Crisis. These planes returned to Castle after the crisis. The squadron moved to Oxnard Air Force Base, California on 18 July 1968 and was inactivated the same day, transferring its mission, personnel and equipment to the 437th Fighter-Interceptor Squadron.