The first predecessor of the wing was the 472d Bombardment Group, which trained Boeing B-29 Superfortress crews for combat deployment until being disbanded in 1944 at Clovis Army Air Field.

[2][3] The group was assigned to the 58th Bombardment Wing, which returned to Smoky Hill from Marietta Army Air Field in the middle of the month.

[citation needed] However, the Army Air Forces was finding that standard military units like the 472d, based on relatively inflexible tables of organization were not well adapted to the training mission.

[1] As the previous two air resupply wings had done, the 582d spent its first year training and preparing its personnel for the psychological warfare mission.

For the next two and one-half years, the 582d worked closely with the 10th Group providing airdrop, resupply, and airland support with its B-29 and Fairchild C-119 Flying Boxcar aircraft.

By the mid-1950s the Air Force redirected its priorities away from psychological operations, the 582d Group was the last remaining unit with this mission, and it was inactivated on 25 October 1956.