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The 414th Fighter Group (USAAF) was a fighter unit that entered combat as a ground attack group with the Twentieth Air Force late in the Second World War.
The group was constituted on 5 October 1944 and activated on 15 October 1944. It was equipped with the P-47 Thunderbolt, which it retained for the rest of the war.
The group moved to the Pacific theatre in June-August 1945. The long term plan was for it to be assigned to XXI Bomber Command to serve as a B-29 escort squadron, but in the short term it was assigned to AAFPOA (Army Air Forces, Pacific Ocean Areas), which became USASTAF (US Army Strategic Air Forces in the Pacific) before the group arrived.
The air echelon was based on Guam for two attacks on Truk, on 13 July and 22 July, carried out to give the group some experience of combat against a badly weakened opponent.
The group was then united on Iwo Jima, and became operational from its new base towards the end of July. Its first raid was an attack on a radar base on Chichi Jima. Once on Iwo Jima it came under the operational command of XXI Bomber Command.
In August the group was mainly used to attack airfields on the Japanese Home Islands, but it also attacked barracks, ordnance dumps, trains, marshalling yards and shipping.
In December 1945 the group moved to the Philippines, where it joined the Thirteenth Air Force. The group was inactivated there on 30 September 1946.
Pending
1944-1946: Republic P-47 Thunderbolt
5 October 1944 | Constituted as 414th Fighter Group |
15 October 1944 | Activated |
June-August 1945 | To Asiatic-Pacific Theatre and Twentieth Air Force |
13 July 1945 | Combat debut from Guam |
December 1945 | To Philippines and Thirteenth Air Force |
30 September 1946 | Inactivated |
Lt Col Robert C Bagby:
28 Oct 1944
Col Henry G Thorne Jr: 6
Dec 1944-unkn. Col
Seymour Johnson Field, NC:
15 Oct 1944
Selfridge Field, Mich: 15 Nov
1944
Bluethenthal Field, NC: 19 Mar-11
May 1945
North Field, Iwo Jima: 7 Jul 1945
Clark Field, Luzon: 23 Dec 1945-30
Sep 1946
413th: 1944-1946
437th: 1943-1946
456th: 1944-1946
1944-45: 301st Fighter Wing; Twentieth Air Force
1946: XIII Fighter COmmand; Thirteenth Air Force