22nd Troop Carrier Squadron | 5th AAF | two theater-made patches

[walika]

22nd Troop Carrier Squadron | 5th AAF

LINEAGE: 22d Transport Squadron activated on 3 Apr 1942 prior to constitution on 4 Jun 1942. Redesignated 22d Troop Carrier Suqadron on 5 Jul 1942. Inactivated on 31 Jan 1946.

ASSIGNMENTS. Air Transport Command, US Army Forces in Australia (later Air Carrier Service, Air Service Command, Fifth Air Force), 3 Apr 1942; 374th Troop Carrier Group, 12 Nov 1942-31 Jan 1946.

STATIONS. Essendon Airdrome, Australia, 3 Apr 1942; Garbutt Field, Australia, 11 Oct 1942; Port Moresby, New Guinea, 24 Jan 1943; Garbutt Field, Australia, 4 Oct 1943; Finschhafen, New Guinea, 29 Aug 1944; Nielson Field, Luzon, Aug 1945-31 Jan 1946.

AIRCRAFT. Included DC-2, DC-3, c-39, c-49, c-53, c-56, c-60, B-17, and B-18 during 1942; C-47, 1942-1945; C-46, 1945-1946.

OPERATIONS. Included paratroop drop on Nadzab, New Guinea, as well as aerial transportation in South, Southwest, and Western Pacific, during World War II.

 

CAMPAIGNS. World War II: Air Offensive, Japan; Papua; New Guinea; Northern Solomons; Bismarck Archipelago; Western Pacific; Leyte; Luzon; Southern Philippines.

DECORATIONS. Distinguished Unit Citations:Papua, 23 Jul 1942-23 Jan 1943; Papua, 12 NOV-22 Dec 1942; Wau, New Guinea, 30 Jan-1 Feb 1943.

EMBLEM. On a medium blue disc, wide border light red, a caricatured, light gray donkey, trimmed white and black, having large, light red pack, outlined black, strapped about the middle by heavy, black band climbing hilly terrain light brown, shaded dark brown. (Approved 17 Jun 1944.)

 

Theater-made. Australian embroidery.

 

 

Theater-made. Indian or Chinese embroidery on silk.

 

 

The squadron was hastily put together with some impressed civilian Douglas DC-2s and DC-3s with a mission of transporting personnel, equipment and supplies within Australia, organizing American and Australian forces against the perceived Japanese invasion of Australia.

Over the next few months the squadron was assigned additional aircraft, flying derivatives of the Lockheed C-56 and C-60 Lodestar along with a war-weary four-engine Boeing B-17D Flying Fortress withdrawn from the Philippines and a Douglas B-18 Bolo which had found its way to the South Pacific. The squadron entered combat on 5 July 1942, being redesignated the 22d Troop Carrier Squadron. It participated in a paratroop drops at Nadzab, New Guinea, in September 1942. It continued to fly combat resupply and casualty evacuation missions from Northern Australia until 11 October 1942, when it relocated closer to the fighting front to Garbutt Field, in northern Queensland, not far from Japanese-occupied New Guinea.

In November 1942 the squadron was assigned to the 374th Troop Carrier Group. The 374th was a newly arrived group from the United States equipped with new Douglas C-47 Skytrains. The mixture of aircraft the squadron was formed with were reassigned to other units. With the 374th Group the squadron continued to fly combat missions over New Guinea. On 24 January 1943, the squadron relocated from the Australian mainland to the airfield complex at Port Moresby, New Guinea.

The squadron moved to Finschhafen Airfield in August 1944 to support the Allied effort to push Japanese forces off the island. The fierce fighting in tropical and mountainous New Guinea continued until 1945. It proved to be one of the most important and difficult campaigns in the Pacific War. The 11,000 to 13,000-foot, jungle-clad Owen Stanley Range of New Guinea, known as "the Hump," was commemorated on the unit emblem, approved on 17 June 1944, and still in use to this day.

 

 

A C-46 Commando flies over “the Hump,” part of the Owen Stanley Mountain Range in New Guinea.

Members of the 22nd Airlift Squadron made this trip many times during World War II. (USAF Photo.)

In the final month of the Pacific War, the 22d relocated to Nielson Field, Luzon, in the recently liberated Philippines, adding the larger Curtiss C-46 Commando transport plane to its veteran fleet of C-47s. When the Japanese surrendered in August 1945, the squadron was flying combat resupply and support missions from Nielson Field, until it was inactivated at the end of January 1946, its personnel being returned to the United States.

 

 

 

 

 

References:

Maurer. Combat Squadrons of the Air Force World War II.

Travis Air Force Base. 22nd Airlift Squadron Celebrates 70th Anniversary.

 

 

 

[Rats of Tobruk]

walika your posts are interesting and very educational. Do you have any information on who designed the patches or how they came about? Thank you.