The 103rd was founded and eventually commanded by Major Charles J. Biddle, who had flown in World War I as part of the famous American volunteer Lafayette Escadrille.

In February 1941, as the war in Europe raged, the unit was ordered to active service, performing antisubmarine patrols off the coast of New England.

After a year's worth of training, the 103rd deployed to the China-Burma-India (CBI) Theater of war in 1944 where it operated out of various fields in India and Burma.

It was heavily involved in photo reconnaissance activities over Burma, supporting the US Army forces fighting the Japanese in the jungles there.

Based on the World War II B-29 Bomber, the RB-29s were instead configured with multiple aerial cameras for mapping and reconnaissance missions.

The 103rd and the 111th were returned to control of the Pennsylvania Air National Guard in late November 1952, and the units were re-formed at Philadelphia International Airport by 1 January 1953.

In 1962, the unit transitioned from the F-89J jet interceptor to a large, heavy transport, the Boeing C-97 Stratofreighter, a double-decked, four-engine airplane.

The unit made several deployments to Central America in the 1980s to fly with US allies there, who had been sold the A-37 as part of the US Foreign Military Sales program.

Pilots continued their previous mission of providing AFAC and Combat Search and Rescue, although in a much more combat-hardened attack plane.

The combat flight missions over Iraq were to enforce United Nations resolutions and occurred during the 1990s post Cold War era.

Now the pilots' primary task was to provide Close Air Support (CAS) for joint service ground forces, as well as performing AFAC and CSAR duties as before.

This change to the normal A-10 role aligned the wing with all the other A-10 units in the active duty and Air Reserve Component (ARC).

Use of the A-10 was more limited than before, due to the aircraft's relative lack of a precision weapon capability [except the AGM-65 Maverick air-to-ground tactical missile].

From October 2002 – January 2003, the wing was the lead unit for a short notice, voluntary, out-of-cycle AEF deployment to Bagram AB, Afghanistan.

Bagram had been a massive Soviet base during the decade when they occupied Afghanistan (1979–89), but was almost completely destroyed in that period and civil war afterwards.

The A-10s were flown and maintained in the most primitive conditions, yet the 111th personnel flew 100% of the assigned tasking for their entire deployment – at four times the normal sortie rate of home.

Upon returning to the U.S. in January 2003, the 111th FW again volunteered to participate in another SWA deployment to Al Jaber AB, Kuwait [fourth visit] from February 2003 – May 2003.

During this campaign, which included direct support for coalition armor forces during the entire invasion from the Kuwait border, through Basra and Baghdad, the wing pilots and maintainers successfully operated at a very high sortie rate.

Tallil AB operations set another milestone due to its austere nature and forward location (which was essential to support the armor's thrust toward the capital).

[2] The renamed 103rd Attack Squadron officially reached initial operational RPA capability with the launch of its first combat air patrol sortie at Horsham AGS on 3 April 2016.