After the surrender of Japan, it moved to Clark Field in the Philippines, where it was part of Thirteenth Air Force until its planes were transferred to another group and it was inactivated in September 1946.

The group was activated in its current role as an associate unit in 2010, flying and maintaining the same aircraft as the regular Air Force 4th Fighter Wing.

The role of the new group is to help Seymour Johnson Air Force Base produce more qualified McDonnell Douglas F-15E Strike Eagle aircrew and provide skilled maintainers to assist in the maintenance of the F-15E aircraft.

[4] On 19 March 1945, the Group moved to Bluethenthal Field, North Carolina[2] in preparation for their departure to the Pacific war zone.

The first element left from the Pacific Coast in June[8] on USS Cape Esperance, with 49 planes for Iwo Jima, arriving on 7 July.

The air echelon that was based temporarily on Guam flew two missions from Harmon Field to Truk, one of the Caroline Islands,[2] beginning on 13 July[9] intending to attack Japanese planes, but found none.

[9] Operations during August were directed primarily against enemy airfields in Japan but the group also strafed hangars, barracks, ammunition dumps, trains, marshalling yards and shipping.

[2] A raid on Okazaki was diverted due to visibility and the secondary target, Nagoya Airfield, had no planes, so the group's fighters strafed buildings on the field.

On return from one of the group's first operations supporting B-29s over Kyūshū on 8 August, the fuel supplies of several Thunderbolts were exhausted and pilots bailed out near Navy ships patrolling the route.

[4] On 12 August 1945, the portion of the group at Guam attempted to join the rest of the unit on Iwo Jima, but severe weather forced them to divert to Tinian and Saipan.

[12] Because Project Arrow was also designed to reunite World War II groups and their historic components, the 437th Fighter-Interceptor Squadron moved on paper from Otis Air Force Base, Massachusetts to Oxnard and took over the Lockheed F-94C Starfires[6] of the 533d's 354th Fighter-Interceptor Squadron, which left Oxnard for McGhee-Tyson Airport, Tennessee.

[19] The group mission was "to provide [the] southern California area with combat ready aircraft and crews to repel an enemy force attempting to strike against the United States.

[12] All its components were inactivated as well, except for the 460th, which moved to Kingsley Field, Oregon,[25] where it replaced the 59th Fighter-Interceptor Squadron, a Convair F-102 Delta Dagger unit.