In addition, Congress appropriated $25 million to expand and transform Dover Air Force Base into a supplemental east coast port of embarkation for MATS and as a Foreign Clearing Base for ferrying flights headed to Europe, the Caribbean, and to the countries of the north.

On 1 May 1954, the first Douglas C-124 Globemaster II arrived at Dover and on 12 June, the 45th Air Transport Squadron flew the first C-124 "heavy" transport mission, airlifting five engines to Harmon Field, Newfoundland and a 12,000 pound spool of cable to Torbay Air Base, Newfoundland.

On 1 February 1965, MATS announced that Dover was selected as one of four bases where the Lockheed C-141 Starlifter would be tested under a program called "Lead the Force".

The initial mission of the 1607th Air Transport Wing (Heavy) was "to command, operate, administer and maintain Dover Air Force Base and such organizations, installations and facilities as may be assigned by proper authority for the purpose of transporting by air, personnel, material, mail, strategic materials and other cargoes for all agencies of the Department of Defense (DOD) and as authorized for other government agencies of the United States, subject to priorities and policies established by higher headquarters".

In the following years, the 1607th Air Transport Wing assumed the additional responsibility for logistical airlift operations including unit deployment, airdrop supply, air landed supply, scheduled and nonscheduled airlift, as well as joint airborne operations and training to include the capability for airdrop of personnel and cargo.

Examples include: Big Slam/Puerto Pine, March 1960, was an exercise that deployed 22,000 combat Army troops and 12,000 tons of gear from stateside bases to Ramey AFB and Roosevelt Roads Naval Air Station, Puerto Rico; Check Mate II, September 1961, involved the deployment of the 101st Airborne Division from Fort Campbell, Kentucky to bases in Europe; Southern Express, October 1962, a NATO exercise which involved airlifting troops from central Europe to northern Greece; Big Lift, October 1963, the deployment of a full Army division from Texas to West Germany; The Cuban Missile Crisis, October 1962.

The Wing and its aircrews worked at peak capacity airlifting troops and supplies from bases throughout the country to Florida and Guantanamo Bay.

Forty vehicles equipped with 109 mm weapons were carried in five C-124s that flew in formation from Dhahran, Saudi Arabia to Amman, Jordan; Project ICE CUBE, May 1955, supported the construction of the Distant Early Warning Line in northern Canada; Polar Strike, January 1965, was conducted to evaluate U.S. STRICOM's ability to reinforce the Alaskan Command.

In December 1958, a Dover AFB C-133 airlifted the heaviest load in the history of aviation when it carried 118,000 pounds of cargo to an altitude of 10,000 feet, breaking the former world record held by a Soviet Tupolev Tu-104 "Camel"; on 7 February 1960, a Dover C-124 with a 15th Air Transport Squadron aircrew flew a record breaking non-stop flight from Hickam AFB, Hawaii to Dover AFB in eighteen hours and forty minutes; a C-124 of the 1st Air Transport Squadron was assigned temporary duty to the 54th Air Rescue Squadron at Goose Bay, Labrador to aid in the rescue of 26 passengers and 8 crew members of a Norwegian vessel ice bound off the coast of Greenland; in March 1956, 22,000 pounds of emergency polio equipment and supplies were airlifted to Buenos Aires to help combat a polio outbreak; the AMIGO Airlift, mercy missions to Santiago, Chile in May 1960, when an earthquake literally re-made parts of that country; in 1962, the four-month round the world tour of John Glenn's space capsule Friendship 7 ; many re-supply missions from Thule Air Base, Greenland to the northernmost weather outposts at Nord, Greenland and Alert, both within just some 500 miles of the North Pole; the delivery of a telespectrograph to Ascension Island in support of the space project FIRE.

It was the first time such an instrument was airlifted as a complete unit; the airlift of supplies and emergency equipment to Alaska after an earthquake struck that state in March 1964; the presidential support mission of John F. Kennedy, in July 1963, when he spoke the famous words "Ich Bin Ein Berliner", at the Berlin Wall.

During its twelve-year history at Dover, the 1607th ATW accumulated 1,076,483 transport flying hours or an approximate equivalent distance of 235 million nautical miles.