The 17th Aero Squadron was activated in August 1917 and earned 13 campaign streamers in France flying the Sopwith Camel.

The 17th emblem, modified from the one adopted in 1917, consists of a Great White Snowy Owl in front of a black triangle with a blue background.

Company A, Remount Station, Fort Sam Houston, Texas was organized on 13 May 1917, about a month after President Wilson declared war on Germany.

The War Department created a new 1st Pursuit Group between late April and mid-August 1919 when it dispatched a small cadre of personnel to Selfridge Field, Michigan.

The pursuit school was the first step in building a new permanent air service and by providing a course of instruction for pilots at Kelly, it was a way to transfer the hard-earned knowledge gained during World War I to a new generation of fliers.

They also flew a training program that covered formation flying, aerobatics, air-to-air and air to ground gunnery, reconnaissance and patrol tactics.

As the Army's only pursuit group, the War Department took special pains to ensure that it was maintained in a high state of readiness.

During World War II, the facility would be expanded as Oscoda Army Air Field, as a training base.

Equipped with fast, nimble, pursuit planes such as the Curtiss P-1 Hawk, the unit attracted the attention of the public wherever it appeared.

The onset of the Great Depression gave the unit additional responsibilities in 1931, the group participated in several air shows staged to benefit the unemployed.

Leaving Selfridge on 31 October, the squadron was reassigned to the 4th Composite Group at Nichols Field, near Manila in the Philippines, on 14 December 1940.

[8] The 17th Pursuit Squadron had been sent overseas without aircraft to fly Seversky P-35s that had been held back from a sale to Sweden to reinforce the Philippines.

Until their aircraft arrived and were assembled in March 1941, they practiced in the Boeing P-26 Peashooters that then constituted the interceptor force at Nichols Field.

It was too lightly armed and lacked either armor around the cockpit or self-sealing fuel tanks, and the instruments of the aircraft flown by the 17th were marked in Swedish and calibrated in the metric system.

[9] On 1 October 1941 the squadrons were reassigned to the newly created 24th Pursuit Group and became part of the Far East Air Force (FEAF) when it stood up in November.

They came over the unprotected field in a V-formation at a height estimated at 22,000 to 25,000 feet, dropping their bombs on the aircraft and buildings below, just as the air raid warning sounded.

[10] The Japanese followed up their success of the first day of war with air attacks that completed the destruction of American airpower in the Philippines.

Before dawn of the 9th, seven Japanese naval bombers struck Nichols Field near Manila, opening the next round, but the remainder of that day's attackers were grounded on Taiwan by fog.

In January 1942, the squadron undertook a flight across Australia and the Arafura Sea, to Java and took part in the Dutch East Indies Campaign, where it claimed 49 Japanese aircraft destroyed, for the loss of 17 P-40s.

[12] At the end of February, as Japanese ground forces approached, the squadron handed over its surviving aircraft to the Dutch military and returned to Australia.

The mission of the 17th was the destruction of North Vietnamese surface-to-air-missile batteries by destroying or otherwise shutting down their guidance radars, leaving enemy missile sites effectively blind and impotent.

Once these sites were identified, the Wild Weasel aircraft could attack them with a battery of AGM-45 Shrike anti-radar missiles, which were designed to home in on an enemy radar transmission and follow it all the way to its source and destroy it.

The Wild Weasel aircraft would also carry powerful jamming equipment which was designed to confuse the enemy radar installation or to misdirect any surface-to-air missiles that might be launched.

Alternatively, the Wild Weasel crew could direct other aircraft toward the missile sites, which would be attacked by iron bombs or cannon fire.

[13] After the end of American military flights over North Vietnam in January 1973, the squadron maintained the capability to deliver Wild Weasel support for operations over Cambodia of Boeing B-52 Stratofortress, General Dynamics F-111 Aardvark, and McDonnell F-4 Phantom II aircraft until August 1973.

The squadron's aircraft were returned to the United States, being assigned to the 35th Tactical Fighter Wing at George Air Force Base, California.

[14] After the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait in August 1990, the 24 aircraft of the 17th were deployed to Al Dhafra Air Base, Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates on 9 August 1990 and started flying air defense missions over the Saudi kingdom as part of Operation Desert Shield.

Equipped with Boeing F-15E Strike Eagles, they fly direct support of the U. S. Air Force Weapons School, assigned to the 57th Wing.