Gruparea Aerienă de Luptă (GAL), was constituted in mid-June 1941 as the main Royal Romanian Air Force (ARR) unit to participate in the upcoming Operation Barbarossa.

After the 6 October meeting between General Gheorghiu and Field Marshal Wolfram von Richthofen, it was established that GAL was to collaborate closely with Luftwaffe units of Luftflotte 4 and its Fighter Groups (6th, 7th, and 9th) were to escort the German bombers attacking Stalingrad.

[1][5] From the airfields of Tatsinskaya and Morozovskaya, the GAL units supported the 6th German and Third Romanian armies with bombing, reconnaissance and fighter cover missions during the Battle of Stalingrad.

[1][5] After the formation of the Air Corps, its units continued retreating to Melitopol, then to Odessa, Tiraspol, and Mykolaiv where the losses suffered at Stalingrad were replenished.

[6] At this time, fighter units of Grupul 7 Vânătoare began converting to the Bf 109G, with several pilots being transferred to Jagdgeschwader 3 for training.

A grand parade attended by King Michael, Marshal Ion Antonescu, and other high-ranking Luftwaffe officers was staged at Kirovgrad to mark this event.

[9] On 16 June, the Air Corps moved its headquarters to Mariupol and began flying combat missions in support of the Axis forces on the southern part of the Eastern Front.

[13] By late 1944, encounters with German or Hungarian aircraft diminished because of their fuel shortages, and missions were mainly executed in support of ground operations.

[14] In the summer of 1945, aircraft of Corpul 1 Aerian participated in air shows held in Bratislava and Wiener Neustadt.