The 403rd Wing provides command and staff supervision to assigned squadrons and flights that support tactical airlift missions.

The 403rd Troop Carrier Group first entered the Pacific Theater of Operations on 27 July 1943, and was assigned to the XIII Air Force Service Command.

Airmen at first were sent to Tontouta, New Caledonia, where the group provided immediate support of cargo and passengers to Espiritu Santo in the New Hebrides Islands and Guadalcanal.

The wing was manned at 25% of normal strength but its 403rd Troop Carrier Group was authorized four squadrons rather than the three of active duty units.

The 403rd was one of six reserve troop carrier wings mobilized for service with Tactical Air Command (TAC).

The reserve wings were assigned to Eighteenth Air Force, which was initially composed entirely of reserve troop carrier units.,[4] The wing trained at home in its C-46s and participated in Eighteenth Air Force's training exercises until March 1952, when TAC directed it to transfer its C-46s and prepare to move its personnel overseas.

The wing departed the United States on 29 March and by 14 April, it was in place at Ashiya Air Base, Japan.

[5] This action finally solved the Far East Air Force's year-old problem of providing the Army with sufficient lift to handle the 187th Regimental Combat Team intact.

In May 1952, the 403rd airlifted the 187th to Pusan in an expedited movement incident to quelling a communist prisoner of war riot at Koje Do Island.

In one of the first three moves to implement this program, ConAC detached the 65th Troop Carrier Squadron from Portland to Paine Air Force Base, Washington.

In time, the detached squadron program proved successful in attracting additional participants[8] The Joint Chiefs of Staff were pressuring the Air Force to provide more wartime airlift.

Consequently, in November 1956 the Air Force directed ConAC to convert three fighter bomber wings to the troop carrier mission by September 1957.

However, as this plan was entering its implementation phase, another partial mobilization, which included the 403rd Wing, occurred for the Cuban Missile Crisis, with the units being released on 22 November 1962 after a month of active service.

[1] In 1963, the wing moved US troops to the Dominican Republic and airlifted Christmas gifts destined for US servicemen in Vietnam.

Although the 403rd Wing added four Aerospace Rescue and Recovery Squadrons, only the 305th ARRS operated at Selfridge Air Force Base.

Its crews and aircraft conducted aerial weather reconnaissance missions and flew into hurricanes to determine their intensities and movements.

Airmen in the 53d, also known as Hurricane Hunters, are part of the only operational unit in the world that conducts aerial weather reconnaissance on a routine basis.

In May 2006, Airmen in the 96th Aerial Port Squadron deployed to Ali Al Salem Air Base in Kuwait in support of Operations Iraqi Freedom and Enduring Freedom, while in one 2009 deployment, Airmen in the 815th Airlift Squadron set a world record for the maximum number of airdrop bundles delivered in a one-week period including 801 bundles in 24 missions.

The 36th Aeromedical Evacuation Squadron transferred from Pope Field, North Carolina in February 2016, while the 12th Operational Weather flight was also re-assigned to the 403rd in October 2017.

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