[4] The 2nd received four Martin S-Hydro seaplanes (Signal Corps numbers 56-59) on 13 March and 15 April, and began flying on 8 May 1916.

On 28 June, the company provided artillery spotting and adjustment for target practice with the Fort Mills batteries.

At Kelly, a number of men were transferred and sent to the new training airfields that were being established throughout the country, serving as trainers for new recruits and as experienced backbones.

After a few months, the men had little time to worry about their assignment at Kelly Field when suddenly various squadrons began to be ordered for overseas duty in France.

[5] After World War I, the unit was re-organized as a new organization, designated as the 2d Aero Squadron on 3 June 1919 at Rockwell Field, California.

After being organized, the squadron was transferred by train to San Francisco, California, where it boarded a ship bound for Manila, in the Philippine Islands, arriving on 24 December.

[1] Initially attached to Post Headquarters, Fort Mills, it became part of the 1st Observation (later 4th Composite Group) on 10 March 1920.

On 8 April 1924, it was formally consolidated with its World War I and Philippines predecessor unit, giving the squadron a history dating to 1 December 1915.

It operated various Loening seaplanes, Dayton-Wright DH-4s, Thomas-Morse O-19s, Sikorsky and Douglas Dolphin amphibians, as well as other aircraft that the Army would send from the United States that it thought could be used in the Philippines.

In June 1929, the squadron was moved off Corregidor to the 4th Composite Group and Philippines Department Headquarters at Nichols Field, near Manila.

Although beginning in 1938, the Army sent some Douglas O-46 observation monoplanes, these were supplemented in 1941 with some new Curtiss O-52 Owls, and the squadron was moved to Clark Field on 1 November 1940.

By the time FEAF headquarters moved to Darwin, Australia on 31 December 1941, the remainder of the squadron's aircraft were destroyed either on the ground or in the air.

The order for all Air Corps units to move to Bataan Airfield in early January 1942 meant that any remaining squadron personnel left the Manila area.

[1] In the postwar years, limited funding for the Department of Defense meant that Strategic Air Command(SAC) was in severe short supply in the number of units it could support with personnel.

The 2d Bomb Group was transitioning to the new B-50A Superfortress bomber, and SAC was anxious to give its B-50s an air-refueling capability to extend its range.

However, the extremely cold weather in Iceland (-25F) caused difficulties with the aircraft, and the en route MATS services were inadequate.

On the redeployment to the United States at the end of August, all 19 of the squadrons KB-29Ps were to fly from Lakenheath to the Wing's new home at Hunter Air Force Base, Georgia, on a great circle route.

47 hook-ups were made to refuel two squadrons of B-50s, taking 75.5 total flying hours and 10,140 gallons of aviation gasoline.

[8] In July 1952, the squadron supported the deployment of the F-84s of the 31st Fighter-Escort Wing at Turner Air Force Base, Georgia to Japan.

The operation began on 4 July when the tankers refueled the F-84s over Wink, Texas, en route to Castle Air Force Base, California.

The planes were designed to refuel SAC's B-47E Stratojet swept-wing medium bomber, with the 2d Bombardment Wing began to receive also in 1953.

For the next decade, the squadron carried out routine REFLEX deployments to SAC bases French Morocco, as well as training flights in the United States.

The squadron also refueled aircraft enforcing no-fly zones over Bosnia and Herzegovina in the mid-1990s and over northern and southern Iraq between 1992 and 2002.