The 382d Bombardment Group is a former United States Army Air Forces unit. It was last stationed at Camp Anza, California, where it was inactivated on 4 January 1946. The group was active from 1942 to 1944 as a heavy bomber training unit. It was reorganized as a very heavy bomber unit and trained for deployment overseas. However, it arrived at its overseas station too late to see combat, and returned to the United States, where it was inactivated.
The group was first activated at Salt Lake City Army Air Base in November 1942, with the 536th, 537th, 538th and 539th Bombardment Squadrons assigned. The group moved to Davis–Monthan Field, Arizona in January 1943 and began to operate as an Operational Training Unit for Consolidated B-24 Liberator units. The OTU program involved the use of an oversized parent unit to provide cadres to "satellite groups". In April 1943, the group moved to Pocatello Army Air Field, Idaho, where its mission changed to acting as a Replacement Training Unit for Liberator aircrews. RTUs were also oversized units, but their mission was to train individual pilots or aircrews. However, the Army Air Forces was finding that standard military units like the 382d, based on relatively inflexible tables of organization, were not well adapted to the training mission. Accordingly the AAF adopted a more functional system in which each base was organized into a separate numbered unit, whose manning and equipment was tailored to the base's mission. As a result of this reorganization, the 382d was inactivated, and along with other units at Muroc Army Air Field, California, replaced by the 421st AAF Base Unit.
B-29 operations
The group was again activated in late August 1944 at Dalhart Army Air Field, Texas as a Boeing B-29 Superfortress, unit, although until 19 September it had no squadrons assigned and was commanded by a second lieutenant. On that date, a new set of squadrons, the 420th, 464th, and 872d Bombardment Squadrons, were assigned to the group as its combat elements. These squadrons had each been active as training units earlier, but had been assigned to other groups. The group trained with Superfortresses until the summer of 1945. Its ground echelon deployed to Guam and Tinian by ship in early August 1945 while the air echelon remained at Smoky Hill Army Air Field, Kansas after V-J Day. The ground echelon remained in the Marianas supporting other units' aircraft. The air echelon inactivated in Kansas in August 1945. The ground echelon returned to the United States in December 1945 and was inactivated at the Port of Embarkation in January 1946.
Lineage
Constituted as 382d Bombardment Group on 28 October 1942
Redesignated 382d Bombardment Group, Very Heavy and activated on 25 August 1944.
