The Group provides direct oversight of the Nellis flying mission through the 57th Operations Support Squadron.

In June 1942 the pilots and 72 new P-40Fs loaded aboard the aircraft carrier Ranger at Quonset Point, Rhode Island, sailing 1 July.

On 19 July, off the Gold Coast, they launched in four sections of 18 aircraft and flew to Accra, thence across Equatorial Africa to Palestine, officially becoming part of IX Fighter Command.

The group took part in the Battle of El Alamein and, as part of Ninth Air Force, supported the Commonwealth Eighth Army's drive across Egypt and Libya, escorting bombers and flying strafing and dive-bombing missions against airfields, communications, and troop concentrations until Axis defeat in Tunisia in May 1943.

For front-line operations in direct support of the Eighth Army from the Battle of El Alamein to the capitulation of enemy forces in Sicily, the group received a Distinguished Unit Citation (DUC).

[2] In an aerial battle over the Gulf of Tunis at Cape Bon in April 1943, the group destroyed approximately 74 of the enemy's transport and fighter aircraft[2] while sending an equal number down to the sea and beaches to escape by crash landing.

Forever known by the 57th as the 18 April 1943 Goose Shoot – "The Palm Sunday Massacre," it received another DUC[2] and it added four newly created aces.

This action broke the German's aerial supply line and they surrendered Tunisia thirty days later.

The 57th supported the British Eighth Army's landing at Termoli and subsequent operations in Italy, being reassigned to Twelfth Air Force in August 1943.

It flew interdiction missions against railroads, communication targets, and motor vehicles behind enemy lines, providing a minimum of 48 fighter-bomber sorties per day.

While the group was stationed on Corsica, director William Wyler made a 45-minute long Technicolor documentary film, Thunderbolt!.

In January 1951, its parent 57th Fighter-Interceptor Wing inactivated, although the group remained active as part of the AAC air defense until 1 November 1952 when its personnel were reassigned and it became a paper unit.

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