It operates Boeing C-17 Globemaster III aircraft supporting the United States Air Force global reach mission worldwide.

The rapid transport of supplies by the squadrons permitted the Air Corps to maintain low levels of materiel at its airfields, relying on replenishment from depot stocks only when needed.

The squadron was reassigned to Twelfth Air Force after Operation Torch invasion of North Africa, initially stationed at Tafaraoui Airfield, Algeria.

Its unarmed aircraft flew at night over uncharted territory, landing at small unprepared airfields to provide guns, ammunition, clothing, medical supplies, gasoline, and mail to the partisans.

[5] With the outbreak of the Korean War in June 1950, the squadron deployed to Japan in December 1950 where it was attached to various Far East Air Forces (FEAF) units for the next year.

From Larson, the squadron airlifted troops, blood plasma, aircraft parts, ammunition, medical supplies, and much more, primarily to Japan, in support of the Korean War until the armistice in June 1953.

[5] By 1955 the Cold War was well under way, and North American Air Defense Command set out to build a chain of radar stations on the northernmost reaches of the continent.

Between 1955 and 1957, the squadron began to fly missions to the Alaskan arctic regions, carrying 13 million pounds of supplies and equipment to build the DEW Line.

During the 1960s the aircraft of the squadron found themselves almost continually supporting United States military missions in South Vietnam as the growing American commitment required more troops, supplies and equipment.

In March 1975, with the fall of South Vietnam imminent, the squadron returned to Saigon one last time during Operation Babylift, which carried hundreds of Vietnamese orphans to the United States, where adoptive parents awaited their arrival.

This new version of the aircraft increased its cargo carrying capacity by inserting two fuselage plugs, one forward, one aft of the wings, totaling just over 23 feet in length.

Within days the squadron began flying missions to the Middle East as part of Operation Desert Shield, the effort to deter further aggression from Iraq.

[5] In early 1992, squadron crews and aircraft began participating in Operation Provide Hope, helping to deliver hundreds of tons of food and medicine to the former Soviet Union.

[5] In late 1995, President Bill Clinton ordered the deployment of 20,000 U.S. troops to the former Yugoslav Republic of Bosnia, as part of a multinational peacekeeping force.

In spite of severe weather conditions, crews and aircraft were soon flying troops and equipment into Taszar Air Base, Hungary, for Operation Joint Endeavor.

In January 1996 the squadron, operating under a provisional wing located at Rhein-Main Air Base Germany, continued supporting airlift missions into Tuzla and Sarajevo, Bosnia-Herzogovina.

In April 1996, the squadron provided equipment and personnel transportation in support of an Air Expeditionary Force in the middle eastern Kingdom of Jordan as part of Operation Southern Watch.

A humanitarian mission included the deliverance of relief supplies from Kadena Air Base, Japan to Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam after Typhoon Linda devastated the area in early November 1997.

"On my orders, coalition forces have begun striking selected targets of military importance to undermine Saddam Hussein's ability to wage war," President Bush stated in an address to the nation.

Under the cover of darkness at a forward operating location at Aviano Air Base, Italy on 26 March 2003, squadron aircraft flew into the hostile skies of Northern Iraq.

The nine-hour mission, covering distance roughly the equivalent of Seattle to St. Louis, delivered members of the Army's 173rd Airborne Brigade into an area north of Baghdad.