It received orders to report to the Port of Entry, Philadelphia for immediate transport to France in mid-December 1917, sailing on the SS Northland on 4 December.

It arrived in Liverpool, England on Christmas Day, after spending a week at Halifax, Nova Scotia, waiting to form up with a convoy for the cross-Atlantic voyage.

Its primary duty became the repairing and maintaining the conditions of the planes used in the instructional classes, primarily French Nieuports.

[2] The squadron remained at 3d AIC until after the Armistice with Germany in November 1918, then returned to the United States in early April 1918.

[2] After World War I ended, there was a general interest in organizing aviation assets for the National Guard system.

At the time, in the US force structure aircraft were organized into infantry units in a fashion similar to other weapons, like artillery.

[3] The 101st helped gain fame when it played a big part in the U.S. Army Air Service's flight around the world.

[3] In the post-war era the National Guard Bureau began a major expansion of its air units.

[3] In the midst of the switch to jet fighters, the Guard units were left with their handed-down and generally overused World War II propeller aircraft, and had little money for training.

As the Cold War intensified, the Air Forced looked to the Guard to fill US-based interception missions and started overhauling their organization.

From 1956 to 1976, the 102d was headed by Brigadier General Charles W. Sweeney, who piloted the Boeing B-29 Superfortress, which dropped the Fat Man atomic bomb on Nagasaki, Japan in 1945.

[6] During the summer of 1961, as the Berlin Crisis unfolded, several USAF reserve units were notified on 16 August of their pending recall to active duty.

During its time in Europe, the 101st participated in several USAF and NATO exercises, including a deployment to Leck Air Base, West Germany near the Danish border.

The wing flew the F-84F Thunderstreak from 1964 until June 1971, when a squadron of F-100D Super Sabres was transferred directly from units fighting the Vietnam War.

Between January and April 1988, the squadron converted to the F-15A Eagle, which it received from a unit inactivating at Minot Air Force Base.

Two F-15s piloted by Lieutenant Colonel Timothy Duffy and Major Daniel Nash were scrambled and took off to fly to New York.

[9][10][11][12] At 9:13, the pilots of the F-15s told FAA Boston Center that they were heading for Manhattan to establish a Combat Air Patrol (CAP) over the area.

[7] The wing never deployed overseas to support the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq but it did continue to patrol the Northeastern United States skies.

The BRAC 2005 commission originally planned to close Otis Air National Guard Base and dissolve the 101st.

With the grounding of the F-15 Eagles, the 158th Fighter Wing, which is based in Vermont temporarily took over the role of patrolling the Northeast's skies.

The unit's wing commander, Colonel Anthony Schiavi, led the flight, accompanied by Major Daniel Nash, who was one of the first responders for 9/11.

Fire trucks were on hand when the team landed a half-hour later, giving the planes and the pilots the customary ceremonial hose-down for the last time.

[8] As soon as it was announced that the wing would be kept alive and Otis Air National Guard Base would remain open, the state government began thinking of the future for the 101st.

There was talk among the members of the Massachusetts National Guard that it could transition to an intelligence mission so that it could help support the War on Terror.

[citation needed] Original BRAC plans only said that a Distributed Common Ground System would be created at Otis.