Today, the 34th Bomb Squadron stands ready to provide combat-ready aircrews to project global power anytime in support of the Combatant Commander's objectives.

The destroyer dropped depth charges on the submarine, and the Baltic made a sudden turn to port, that caused both men and anything loose aboard the ship to move.

Suddenly a large explosion was heard and five long blasts were made by the ship's whistle and everyone on board was ordered to report to their assigned lifeboats.

The Baltic's captain announced that a torpedo had struck the ship, but it had only made a glancing blow on the bow; that the emergency pumps were working and there was no danger.

From there, the squadron marched to the American Second Aviation Instructional Center (2d AIC), at Tours Aerodrome, their assigned duty station in France on 23 December 1917.

Other men were engaged in construction activities, putting up aircraft hangars and wooden buildings for all manner of uses from training classes to barracks.

From Colombey, the squadron was moved to a staging camp under the Services of Supply waiting for a date to report to a base port for transportation home.

[citation needed] In August, it received the updated B-25B, that had a much heavier defensive armament, dictated by the results of combat reports coming in from Europe.

[10] In the immediate aftermath of the Pearl Harbor Attack, the 34th flew anti-submarine warfare patrols in the Pacific Northwest from 22 December 1941 to c. March 1942.

It moved to Lexington County Airport, South Carolina, on 9 February 1942 in order to meet the greater threat from German submarines operating off the East Coast.

[1] Planning for a retaliatory bombing raid on Japan began in December 1941, and twenty-four B-25Bs were diverted from the 17th Bombardment Group, which was the only B-25 unit in the Air Corps, and volunteers from its four squadrons, including the 34th, were recruited, the crews being told only that this was a secret and dangerous mission.

Upon completion of training, they left Eglin for McClellan Field, California for final modifications to the B-25s before moving to Naval Air Station Alameda, where the bombers were loaded on the USS Hornet (CV-8) for the raid.

[11] The remainder of the squadron remained in Columbia, flying antisubmarine patrols until 23 June when it moved to Barksdale Field, Louisiana.

[1] In November 1942, the squadron deployed to North Africa, arriving at Telergma Airport, Algeria in December 1942 following Operation Torch's initial landings, becoming part of XII Bomber Command.

The squadron flew interdiction and close air support, bombing bridges, rail lines, marshalling yards, harbors, shipping, gun emplacements, troop concentrations and other enemy targets in Algeria and later Tunisia supporting American and later Allied ground forces as they moved east and participated in the Tunisian Campaign.

From airfields in Corsica, the 34th supported Allied ground forces during Operation Dragoon, the invasion of southern France in August 1944.

It earned a second Distinguished Unit Citation for bombing attacks on enemy defenses near Schweinfurt, Germany just before the end of the war on 10 April 1945.

Funding issues associated with the postwar Air Force meant that the "Attack Bomber" concept had to be shelved, with TAC's resources being put into jet fighters.

To meet the emergency needs of the Korean War, the 452d Bombardment Group (Light), an Air Force Reserve unit out of Long Beach Airport, California, was called to active duty.

[1] After the Korean armistice in June 1953, the squadron remained in South Korea for a year and a half until being moved to Miho Air Base, Japan in October 1954.

The early model B-57Bs, however suffered from many technical problems, including an engine malfunction which filled up the cockpit with toxic fumes, which led to a brief grounding.

In January 1958, the squadron deployed to RAF Sculthorpe, England where its aircraft were subsequently transferred to the 47th Bombardment Wing, replacing obsolete North American B-45C Tornados.

[1][17] The squadron designation was transferred from TAC to Strategic Air Command (SAC) in November 1962 as part of a process to re-designate Boeing B-52 Stratofortress "Strategic Wings", which were set up by SAC to disperse its bombers to numerous bases to avoid a single nuclear strike taking out an entire wing at one place.

In early 1994 the B-52Gs were retired with the closing of Castle and the squadron moved to Ellsworth Air Force Base, South Dakota where it transitioned to the Rockwell B-1B Lancer, remaining part of the 366th Operations Group at Mountain Home.

Deployed again to South Asia and, in 2003, the squadron kicked off Operation Iraqi Freedom with the largest precision guided bomb strike in history, when four B-1s delivered 96 GBU-31 2,000 lb JDAMs.