The triumph of compassion: air mobility's legacy

MCGUIRE AIR FORCE BASE, N.J. (USTCNS) --- The 305th Air Mobility Wing recently won its fifth consecutive Air Force Outstanding Unit Award and, in the process, the history of the former bombardment and refueling wing has become interlaced forever with that of the world's most successful large organization - Air Mobility Command.

This statement is no exaggeration - you would have to search a lifetime to find a comparable organization that's performed so essential a task on such a scale for so long or so well as AMC.

The present conflict, though far from over, has shown the importance again of air mobility. To paraphrase Sir Arthur "Bomber" Harris, there was one problem with the Taliban's perverse jihad - they forgot to put a roof on it. Once more, the innovative and adaptive strengths of America's air forces met an almost insurmountable challenge and routed a battle-hardened enemy that seemed oblivious to technology or air supremacy. The Taliban failed to realize, as have a procession of enemies that America reinvents air power every day as is not dogma-driven nor doctrinally bound. America first and foremost finds workable solutions proportionate to the problem.

The local 6th Airlift Squadron is one of the oldest in the Air Force, tracing its origins as far back as 1933. As such, it predates the "modern" concept of airlift. The air mobility mission as we recognize it today dates back to the Second World War and tanker operations date back merely 50-years. Thus, the past five decades at McGuire parallels the entire history of air mobility and has helped to shape a force so successful and far reaching that it's come to be one of the cornerstones of air power. It's true to say that AMC has invented and reinvented airlift as it sees fit. Our predecessors have been confronted with numerous unprecedented and - some contended - impossible challenges over the past six decades.

AMC's stunning achievements

During World War II, China was cut off early from land and sea based resupply of any consequence. Its people faced starvation and defeat at the hands of Japan. The war was going very badly, perhaps at its lowest point, when President Roosevelt tasked the emergent Air Transport command with resupplying the theater through aerial sports. This was a tall order indeed - to surmount the natural barrier of the Himalayas, overcome the limited range and load carrying capacity of the transports available in 1942, train and equip a new air force and operate over hostile air space - our predecessors had to conceive and implement a whole new way of war while conducting their operations.

By the end of World War II, despite its limited priority, the China-India Division of ATC accomplished every portion of their key missions and even provided direct combat support. From an initial cadre of a few hundred airmen, this force grew to more than 35,000 people, employed thousands of Indian and Chinese citizens, and had almost a billion ton-miles available for airlift in 1945 of which almost half was utilized.

Couple this astonishing number with the fact that the world's largest over-water invasion took place simultaneously on the other side of the planet, fully utilizing available airlift. New methods of loading/offloading supplies, containerizing shipments, apportioning crews, and working around and predicting the weather, joined with manufacturing miracles [both aircraft and crews,] made this nearly-impossible tasking workable.

American military airlift became the world's largest airline and air freight service. This professionalization of the airlift mission and the unbelievable scale of the effort made the even more impossible Berlin Airlift possible in 1948. There, the vexing problems were not the amount of airlifters nor the distances of operation. The problems were getting an air force to land enough supplies in meaningful quantities in so finite a space as Tempelhof Airport.

The solution was to accomplish landings on the strictest schedule possible to accomplish the mission - every three minutes, the optimum interval. A blown approach required pilots reenter the entire circuit and start again. Every able-bodied person and piece of mission handling equipment was employed. Aircraft even carried coal and industrial fuels like a freight train. On Easter Sunday, 1949, the Berlin Airlift replaced as many as 12 50-car freight trains in 1,398 accident-free sorties. It was an unimaginable feat that does not pale five decades later.

Airmen were baffled by their achievement. In one of the great after action reports in Air Force history, our predecessors contended that the Berlin Airlift could be repeated anywhere or anytime with "the only limiting factors being the availability of equipment and trained personnel. The mass movement of cargo and/or personnel in a sustained effort anywhere at any time, is not only possible, but will undoubtedly become a vital factor in any future operation."

By 1954, McGuire had become fully integrated into the world's greatest humanitarian aid collective - the Military Air Transport Service. The 18th Airlift Squadron "Blue Diamonds" hold the distinction of performing the first credited humanitarian relief mission from McGuire when they transported ice and medical supplies to Boston in the wake of Hurricane Carol in September 1954.

It's been one success after another in the intervening 48-years here. The roll call of salvation operations in which this base has taken part includes New Tape, Baby Lift, New Life, Provide Hope, Provide Promise, Desert Shield/Storm, and Enduring Freedom. The personnel of this base and region have performed astonishing acts of kindness in hostile reaches and should be proud each operation was patently successful.

Thus, the humanitarian food drops of Enduring Freedom provided sustenance to thousands even when the media and experts attempted to frame the story as an impossibly naïve relief attempt or propaganda ploy. I think the best image of the entire campaign was footage of a small girl in Afghanistan who not only ate the ration, but also used the container from the food as a backpack for her schoolbooks.

There are two certainties a historian could guarantee: the gaping scars of Manhattan's skyline from the Sept. 11 atrocity shall yield architectural renaissance and AMC will find a way to accomplish any mission thrown its way.

(FROM MCGUIRE AIR FORCE BASE PUBLIC AFFAIRS)