It bombed oil refineries, communications centers, aircraft factories, and industrial areas in Italy, Germany, Austria, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Rumania, Bulgaria, Albania, and Greece, and earned two Distinguished Unit Citations in combat.

The unit was inactivated on 4 August 1946 at Grand Island Army Air Field, Nebraska and its mission, aircraft, and personnel were transferred to the 28th Bombardment Group which was simultaneously activated.

[citation needed] In July 1943 the group moved to Alamogordo Army Airfield, New Mexico[3] where second phase training was performed.

[citation needed] By December 1943, training was complete and the 449th was ordered overseas to the Mediterranean Theater of Operations (MTO).

Each crew flew its aircraft overseas by the South Atlantic Transport Route which took them to Morrison Field, Florida, then to Puerto Rico and Brazil.

[8] The group was a strategic bombardment organization, and bombed oil refineries, communications centers, aircraft factories, and industrial areas in Italy, Germany, Austria, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Rumania, Bulgaria, Albania, and Greece.

Received another DUC for action on 9 July 1944 when the group flew through heavy smoke and intense enemy fire to attack an oil refinery at Ploiești.

Other operations of the group included bombing gun emplacements in southern France in preparation for the invasion in August 1944, and attacking troop concentrations, bridges, and viaducts in April 1945 to assist Allied forces in northern Italy.

[citation needed] After a period of organization, the group moved to Dalhart Army Air Field, Texas, where initial training was conducted with former II Bomber Command B-17 Flying Fortress; B-25 Mitchells and some B-29s.

The origins of the 449th Bombardment Wing began on 1 July 1959 when SAC established the 4239th Strategic Wing (SW) at Kincheloe AFB, Michigan, an Air Defense Command (ADC) base, whose host was the 507th Fighter Group (Air Defense ) and assigned it to the 40th Air Division[10] as part of SAC's plan to disperse its Boeing B-52 Stratofortress heavy bombers over a larger number of bases, thus making it more difficult for the Soviet Union to knock out the entire fleet with a surprise first strike.

Starting in 1960, one third of the squadron's aircraft were maintained on fifteen-minute alert, fully fueled and ready for combat to reduce vulnerability to a Soviet missile strike.

In 1962, in order to perpetuate the lineage of many currently inactive bombardment units with illustrious World War II records, Headquarters SAC received authority from Headquarters USAF to discontinue its Major Command controlled (MAJCON) strategic wings that were equipped with combat aircraft and to activate Air Force controlled (AFCON) units, most of which were inactive at the time which could carry a lineage and history.

Under the Dual Deputate organization,[17] all flying and maintenance squadrons were directly assigned to the wing, so no operational group was activated.

However, in May 1971, the decision to close the base was reversed and it was instead transferred to SAC, which activated the 449th Combat Support Group as the new host organization and assigned it to the wing.

This was only a six-year reprieve, as the base was closed on 30 September 1977 as part of an ongoing reduction in force in the USAF following the end of the Vietnam War.

In November 2006, while conducting an air-land mission, Staff Sergeant Joshua C. Sevilla, assigned to the group's 79th Expeditionary Rescue Squadron and his crew were forcibly detained by at El Fasher Airport, Sudan by members of the Sudanese military who accused them of espionage and demanded the surrender of all crew members and the aircraft.

SSG Sevilla denied a force of more than 150 Sudanese soldiers the ability to control the aircraft, enabling all 17 American detainees to return.