341st Missile Wing Heritage Pamphlet 2018

341st Missile Wing History
The 341st Bomb Group usually functioned as if it were two groups and for a time as three. Soon
after its activation in September 1942, 341st Bomb Group Headquarters and three of its
squadrons, the 22nd, 490th and 491st, were stationed and operating in India under direction of
the Tenth Air Force, while the 11th squadron was stationed and operating in China under
direction of the "China Air Task Force", which was later reorganized and reinforced to become
the Fourteenth Air Force.
Fourteen months later the Group Headquarters along with 22nd and the 491st squadrons joined
the 11th squadron under the command of 69th Composite Wing, Fourteenth Air Force. 341st
Group HQ was Kunming and the 22nd and 491st were at Yangkai, while the 11th continued to
be based at Kweilin, attached to the 68th Composite Wing. However, the 490th "Burma Bridge
Busters" remained in India, under the command of Major-General Howard Davidson's Tenth Air
Force. Still later the 11th Squadron and a detachment of the 491st operated for a time under the
East China Task Force.[1][2]
From several airfields in China the group engaged primarily in attacking enemy concentrations
and storage areas and in conducting sea sweeps and attacks against inland shipping. They also
bombed and strafed such targets as trains, harbors, and railroads in French Indochina and the
Canton-Hong Kong area of China. The Group received a Distinguished Unit Citation (DUC) for
developing and using a special “glip” bombing technique against enemy bridges in French
Indochina. The 341st also earned three World War II Armed Forces Expeditionary Streamers:
India-Burma, China Defensive, and China Offensive.
It was inactivated on 2 November 1945, the day after Group and Squadron personnel debarked at
Newark, New Jersey.
Reserve Bomb Group