Training in the United States

The squadron was first activated as the 774th Bombardment Squadron at Geiger Field, Washington on 1 August 1943 as one of the four original squadrons of the 463d Bombardment Group.^[2][5] The 774th moved to Rapid City Army Air Base, South Dakota, where it received its initial cadre. On 1 September, the key personnel of the squadron and 463d Group moved to Orlando Army Air Base, where they participated in advanced tactical training with the Army Air Forces School of Applied Tactics. A model crew from the squadron moved to Montbrook Army Air Field to participate in simulated missions with a Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress. The cadre returned to Rapid City at the end of the month, where the ground echelon of the squadron was filled out and ground school begun.^[6]

The squadron moved to MacDill Field, Florida, in November and began flight training with the Flying Fortress, although its air echelon was not fully manned until early December. on 2 February, the squadron's ground echelon departed Florida for the port of embarkation at Camp Patrick Henry, Virginia, for shipment to the Mediterranean Theater of Operations, while the air echelon ferried their B-17s via the southern ferry route.^[2][6]

Combat in the Mediterranean Theater

Squadron B-17G Flying Fortress^{[lower-alpha 4]}

The squadron arrived in Italy in March 1944 and flew its first combat mission from Celone Airfield on 30 March against an airfield at Imotski, Yugoslavia.^[6] It engaged primarily in the strategic bombing campaign against Germany. It attacked targets like marshalling yards, oil refineries and aircraft factories in Austria, Czechoslovakia, Germany, Greece, Romania and Yugoslavia.. The squadron was awarded a Distinguished Unit Citation (DUC) for a mission against oil refineries in Ploesti, Romania, on 18 May 1944.^[5] Clouds that obscured the target resulted in Fifteenth Air Force recalling the mission, but the squadron and the rest of the 463d Group did not receive the recall message and was the only unit to continue on,^[6] causing major destruction to the target. Although crippled by intense fighter attacks, they also inflicted severe damage on the opposing air defenses. On 24 May 1945, the 463d Group led the 5th Bombardment Wing in an attack against a Daimler-Benz tank factory at Berlin, Germany. The squadron made a successful attack despite three separate attacks by enemy air defenses, including attacks by German jet fighters.^[6] This action earned the squadron its second DUC.^[5]

The squadron was occasionally diverted from its strategic mission to perform air support and air interdiction missions. In May and June 1944, it bombed bridges to support the campaign for the liberation of Rome. In August 1944, it struck bridges, gun positions and other targets to support Operation Dragoon, the invasion of southern France. It hit military airbases, bridges and other tactical targets to support partisan forces and the Red Army advance in the Balkans. During the last months of the war the squadron operated primarily to support Operation Grapeshot, the spring 1945 offensive in Northern Italy.^[5]

The squadron flew its final combat mission on 26 April 1945.^[6] After V-E Day the squadron transported personnel (primarily soldiers of Fifth Army) from Italy to Casablanca for return to the United States. By early September, the unit had been substantially reduced by transfers to other units and returns of personnel to the United States and it was inactivated in Italy with the end of Project Green in September 1945.^[2][6]

Activation and move to Ardmore

C-119 as flown by the squadron

The squadron was redesignated the 774th Troop Carrier Squadron and activated at Memphis Municipal Airport, Tennessee on 16 January 1953. At Memphis, it absorbed the mission, personnel and Fairchild C-119 Flying Boxcars of the 347th Troop Carrier Squadron, a reserve unit that had been mobilized for the Korean War and was being returned to the reserves. In August, the squadron departed the civilian airfield at Memphis for the newly reopened Ardmore Air Force Base, Oklahoma.^[2]

463d Troop Carrier Wing C-130A^{[lower-alpha 5]}

The squadron airlifted equipment and supplies and supported Army airborne exercises. The squadron became one of the first to equip with the new Lockheed C-130A Hercules in 1956. The squadron also operated a Tactical Air Command (TAC)-sponsored flight demonstration team during the late 1950s and early 1960s known as "The Four Horsemen," utilizing four C-130A aircraft.^[7] In September 1957, Tactical Air Command (TAC) converted the 463d Wing to the dual deputy system.^{[lower-alpha 6]} The 463d Group was inactivated, and the squadron was assigned directly to the 463d Troop Carrier Wing.^[2]

In July 1958, president Camille Chamoun of Lebanon was facing an insurgency against his government and requested military assistance from the United States, which implemented Operation Blue Bat. The squadron, along with other elements of the 463d Wing, flew command elements of Nineteenth Air Force and other personnel and equipment of the Composite Air Strike Force to locations in the Middle East.^[8] The following month, the squadron provided airlift for the 1958 Taiwan Strait Crisis.^[2]

Operations from Sewart and Langley

Although Ardmore had only been open for six years, the Air Force decided to close the base again. The inactivation of the 513th Troop Carrier Wing, a Fairchild C-123 Provider unit at Sewart Air Force Base, Tennessee,^[9] provided room for the 774th and the other operational units of the 463d Wing to move there. The squadron moved to Sewart in November 1958,^[2] and soon began replacing its C-130As with C-130B models. While at Sewart, the squadron provided airlift support during the Berlin Crisis of 1961.^[2] The squadron was again called on to provide emergency airlift support during the Cuban Missile Crisis in October and November 1962, transporting TAC support forces and materiel to Florida, Army units to stations in the southeastern United States and Marine reinforcements to Guantánamo Bay.^[10]

In July 1962, TAC established a Combat Crew Training School at Sewart. Starting with a single squadron, by the spring of 1963, the school had expanded to a full wing, the 4442d Combat Crew Training Wing. As a result of the expansion of the C-130 training unit, the 463d Wing reduced its operations at Sewart and the squadron became nonoperational on 27 December, remaining a paper unit until 1 April 1963, when it was again assigned personnel and equipment at Langley Air Force Base, Virginia. From Langley, the squadron deployed crews and planes to support the US response during the Gulf of Tonkin Incident in the late summer of 1964.^[11] In late April 1965, the squadron participated in Operation Power Pack. Following a military coup in the Dominican Republic, Nineteenth Air Force formed an airlift task force to airlift the 82nd Airborne Division. On 28 and 29 April, the squadron flew C-130s to Pope Air Force Base to join the task force to transport elements of the 82nd Division to San Isidro Air Base. By September, peacekeeping functions had been transferred to Latin American counties' forces and the squadron helped return American forces to the United States.^[12]

Vietnam War

C-130 Hercules taking off from Khe Sanh 1968

While participating in Power Pack, the squadron was also deploying forces to airlift men and material to Southeast Asia. In November 1965, the 463d Wing moved to Mactan Island Airfield, in the Philippines to provide this support full time, and the squadron moved with it.^[2][11]

The squadron deployed crews and planes operating combat airlift missions in Vietnam under the operational control of the 315th Air Division.^{[lower-alpha 7]} The squadron also flew aeromedical evacuation missions. In August 1967, the squadron became the 774th Tactical Airlift Squadron, and in July 1968, the 463d Wing moved from Mactan to Clark Air Base. The 463d began reducing its operations in June 1971{{efnThe wing's 772d Tactical Airlift Squadron inactivated in June, and the 773d Tactical Airlift Squadron in October. Ravenstein, pp. 256-258.}} and was inactivated at the end of the year.^[11] The 774th was reassigned to the host at Clark, the 405th Fighter Wing, until inactivating in September 1972.^[2]

Operations from Dyess

On 1 August 1973, the squadron was reactivated at Dyess Air Force Base. The squadron deployed as a unit frequently to Europe, where it came under the operational control of the 513th Tactical Airlift Wing or the 313th Tactical Airlift Group in England or the 322d Tactical Airlift Wing or 435th Tactical Airlift Wing in Germany. The squadron flew humanitarian missions and participated in exercises. In October 1986, the squadron was inactivated.^[2]