When this Squadron was reactivated in 1975, their mission was to train pilots and weapons systems officers for the McDonnell F-4E Phantom II, and they switched to the F-4D in 1978.

On 7 December 1941, the 63d assumed the mission to defend the Northeastern United States from anticipated enemy air attack while it converted to the Republic P-47 Thunderbolt aircraft and prepared to deploy overseas, operating under the I Fighter Command, New York Fighter Wing in the early months of 1942.

The squadron was given fuselage code "LM" and operated from several RAF stations during the war, flying the P-47C Thunderbolt as an VIII Fighter Command bomber-escort unit initially for Boeing B-17 Flying Fortresses and beginning in 1944 for Consolidated B-24 Liberators attacking enemy targets in Occupied Europe.

Flying escort for fighter sweeps ahead of U.S. bomber fleets, the pilots destroyed 167.5 enemy aircraft in the air and 110 on the ground.

Initially equipped with the P-47D Thunderbolts, being replaced with long-range North American P-51H Mustangs, originally developed for Twentieth Air Force bomber escort missions in the Pacific Theater.

In 1947, the squadron was upgraded to Lockheed P-80C Shooting Stars, as SAC introduced the Boeing B-50 Superfortress in the late 1940s.

The end of the Cold War led to the BRAC commissions, and the downsizing of the Air Force to a smaller organization.

[5] The squadron was reactivated on 1 August 2016 under the command of Lieutenant Colonel Matthew Vedder to train Lockheed Martin F-35 Lightning II pilots as part of a joint effort between Turkey and the United States.

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