Remember when ... Flying with the BEELiners

  • Published
  • By John Lacomia
  • 60th Air Mobility Wing History Office
TRAVIS AIR FORCE BASE, Calif. --  Flying with the "BEELiners" is like flying with a piece of history. Activated as the 21st Transport Squadron on April 3, 1942 under the command of Major Edgar W. Hampton, the unit was first assigned to the Air Transport Command, U.S. Army Air Force in Australia (later Fifth Air Force). Within four months of activation on July 5, the unit was re-designated as the 21st Troop Carrier Squadron flying the C-46 Commando and the C-47 Skytrain.

For the duration of World War II, the 21st would airlift and transport various types of cargo throughout the New Guinea-Australia theatre, which included the Philippines. For its efforts in the Philippines, the unit received the Philippine Presidential Unit Citation, two Distinguished Unit Citations for Papua, one for New Guinea and campaign streamers for Papua, New Guinea, the Northern and Southern Solomons, Bismark Archipelago, the Western Pacific and Leyte. Though the squadron would be inactivated Jan. 31, 1946, it would not be long before it was called back into action.

On Oct. 15, 1946 at Harmon Air Force Base, Guam, the 21st was re-activated and assigned to the 374th Troop Carrier Group. With the outbreak of the Korean War in June 1950, the squadron was moved to Japan and was in place to provide airlift support to the war effort. The squadron would go on to participate in every major engagement in Korea to include the massive airdrops at Sunchon in which more than 290 tons of supplies and more than 1,000 paratroopers were dropped in three days. During the Korean War, the 21st earned another two Distinguished Unit Citations and nine more campaign streamers. The squadron would increase operations in the South Pacific over the next decade to include humanitarian operations in the Republic of the Philippines in February 1962 after the Mindanao Flood and the Republic of Vietnam in May and July 1963 after fires destroyed part of residential Saigon.

By this time, the squadron was already conducting airlift missions to support operations in Southeast Asia. On Aug. 1, 1967, the unit was re-designated as the 21st Tactical Airlift Squadron and within a few months was performing airdrops and assault landings during the siege at Khe San. The 21st would go on to perform one of its most important missions beginning in February 1973, when it was instrumental in the repatriation of American prisoners of war to United States soil during Operation Homecoming.

During its first 51 years of its service, the 21st has flown the C-46, C-47, C-54 Skymaster, C-119 Flying Boxcar and the C-130 Hercules, just to name a few. After World War II, the squadron would be assigned to several groups and wings and would be stationed in several locations in and throughout Japan, the Philippines and Okinawa. The unit would eventually be re-designated as an Airlift Squadron in April 1992 and then on Oct. 1, 1993 the squadron was transferred from the 374th Operations Group at Yokota Air Base, Japan to the 60th Air Mobility Wing at Travis Air Force Base in Calif., and the unit began flying the C-5 Galaxy.

The squadron would fly the C-5 alongside the 22nd Airlift Squadron until early 2006 when the unit transferred over to the Boeing C-17 Globemaster III.

On Aug. 8, 2006, the unit received its first C-17 named the "Spirit of Solano." Within 24 hours of its arrival at Travis, the Spirit of Solano was deployed for its first operational mission. Over the course of the next two years, the unit would receive another ten aircraft. 

In February thru July 2008, the 21st Airlift Squadron, under the command of Lt Col. William Spangenthal, deployed as a squadron for the first time flying the C-17 in support of Operations Enduring and Iraqi Freedom. Less than two years after receiving the C-17, the 21st demonstrated its ability once again to get the job done whenever and whereever called upon.