509th Composite Group

History

The 509th Composite Group (509 CG) was a unit of the United States Army Air Forces created during World War II and tasked with the operational deployment of nuclear weapons. It conducted the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan, in August 1945.

The group was activated on 17 December 1944 at Wendover Army Air Field, Utah. It was commanded by Lieutenant Colonel Paul W. Tibbets. Because it contained flying squadrons equipped with Boeing B-29 Superfortress bombers, C-47 Skytrain, and C-54 Skymaster transport aircraft, the group was designated as a "composite", rather than a "bombardment" formation. It operated Silverplate B-29s, which were specially configured to enable them to carry nuclear weapons.

The 509th Composite Group began deploying to North Field on Tinian, Northern Mariana Islands, in May 1945. In addition to the two nuclear bombing raids, it carried out 15 practice missions against Japanese-held islands, and 12 combat missions against targets in Japan dropping high-explosive pumpkin bombs.

In the postwar era, the 509th Composite Group was one of the original ten bombardment groups assigned to Strategic Air Command on 21 March 1946 and the only one equipped with Silverplate B-29 Superfortress aircraft capable of delivering atomic bombs. It was standardized as a bombardment group and redesignated the 509th Bombardment Group, Very Heavy, on 10 July 1946.

Text from Wikipedia: 509th Composite Group, CC BY-SA 4.0, lightly trimmed.

Key dates

1. 1944
   The 509th Composite Group was constituted on 9 December 1944, and activated on 17 December 1944, at Wendover Army Air Field, Utah.
2. 1944
   On 14 September 1944, the 393d Bombardment Squadron arrived at Wendover from its former base at Fairmont Army Air Base, Nebraska, where it had been in operational training (OTU) with the 504th Bombardment Group since 12 March.
3. 1945
   On 6 March 1945, concurrent with the activation of Project Alberta, the 1st Ordnance Squadron, Special (Aviation) was activated at Wendover, again using Army Air Forces personnel on hand or already at Los Alamos.
4. 1945
   The ground support echelon of the 509th Composite Group, consisting of 44 officers and 815 enlisted men commanded by Major George W. Westcott of the Headquarters Squadron, received movement orders and moved by rail on 26 April 1945 to its port of embarkation at Seattle, Washington.
5. 1945
   It began deploying from Wendover 4 June 1945, with the first B-29 arriving at North Field on 11 June.
6. 1945
   After ground training for the combat crews, the 509th began operations on 30 June 1945, with a calibration flight involving nine of the B-29s on hand.
7. 1945
   The six combat crews of the Hiroshima mission were briefed on their targets, operational flight data, and the effects of the bomb on 4 August 1945.
8. 1945
   The 509th Composite Group returned to the United States on 6 November 1945, and was stationed at Roswell Army Airfield, New Mexico.
9. 1961
   General Groves later saw a lack of foresight of himself and others, as sixteen years after in 1961 only four officers were still on active duty; Tibbets plus Ashworthy (a weaponeer) and two bombardiers, Ferebee and Beahan; so few men experienced with atomic weapons were still in the USAF.

Dates and events quoted from the same Wikipedia article (CC BY-SA 4.0).

Records that place someone with this unit

A unit history doesn't name everyone who served. These records do:

• Morning reports (include Army Air Forces units)
• Search Army and AAF morning reports, 1912–1946 (National Archives Catalog)
• Air Force organizational records and lineage (AFHRA)

More history

• Air Force Historical Research Agency
• Wikipedia: 509th Composite Group