The group was responsible for providing operational, technical and maintenance electronic warfare (EW) expertise for the combat air forces and for systems engineering, testing, evaluation, tactics development, employment, capability and technology assessment.

This includes the wartime responsibility for emergency reprogramming and dissemination of EW system mission data software for combat aircraft.

Combat Shield provides operational units a system-specific capability assessment for their radar warning receivers, electronic attack pods, and integrated EW systems.

Shortly after the group began operations most of its squadrons were detached for separate duty in order to carry out diverse activities over a wide area.

Operating from bases in North Africa until November 1943, the group, or elements of the group, engaged in patrolling the Mediterranean; strafing trucks, tanks, gun positions, and supply dumps to support ground troops in Tunisia; training fighter pilots and replacement crews; and flying photographic and visual reconnaissance missions in Tunisia, Sicily, and Italy to provide information needed to adjust artillery fire.

The group was assigned as a subordinate unit to the new wing at Lake Charles Air Force Base, Louisiana.

Becoming operationally ready with the B-47 in May 1954, the wing conducted strategic bombardment training and air refueling to meet SAC's global commitments.

The B-47s were reaching the end of their operational lifetime in the late 1950s, and the wing's aircraft were sent to Davis-Monthan Air Force Base in April 1963 with the closure of Chennault AFB.

With the closing of Chennault, and in order to retain the lineage of 379th, Headquarters SAC received authority from Headquarters USAF to move the 68th without personnel or equipment to Seymour Johnson Air Force Base, North Carolina on 15 April where it replaced the 4241st Strategic Wing, which could not carry a permanent history or lineage[6]

4241st Strategic Wing SAC had organized the 4241st Strategic Wing at Seymour Johnson on 1 October 1958[7] and assigned it to Second Air Force 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.

The wing continued to conduct strategic bombardment training and global refueling operations to meet SAC commitments.