The squadron is one of the oldest in the United States Air Force, its origins dating to 25 September 1917, when it was organized at Fort Omaha, Nebraska.

Two months later it departed for overseas service on the Western Front (World War I), arriving in France in January 1918.

[1] In the spring of 1919, the squadron returned to the United States and was stationed at Ross Field, California as part of the Air Service Balloon School.

At the beginning of World War II, it operated barrage balloons, but that mission was assigned to the coast artillery and the squadron was disbanded two months after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor.

[1] However, the Army Air Forces was finding that standard military units, based on relatively inflexible tables of organization were not well adapted to the training and logistics support mission.

This article incorporates public domain material from the Air Force Historical Research Agency