It was stationed at Kandahar Airfield in Afghanistan controlling RAF operations at the air base there.

It was activated on 1 April 2006 as part of a modernisation package to make the RAF more deployable on an expeditionary basis.

It was first formed on 1 October 1944 as a tactical wing and its four squadrons were equipped with Republic P-47 Thunderbolts and operated in tactical support of the Fourteenth Army in the liberation of Burma.

In early 1945, the wing was withdrawn from Burma to prepare for supporting the invasion of Malaya scheduled for later in the year; however, the end of the war intervened and the wing was re-roled.

It was deployed to Java in the Netherlands East Indies in the aftermath of the war, commanded by David Lee.