461st Bomb Group (H) collection

Collection

Identifier: RHC-133

Staff Only

Scope and Contents

This collection contains a small amount of material collected by attendees at a 461st Bomb Group reunion. It includes reunion agendas, a 461st Bomb Group badge, and two essays written about the 461st Bomb Group.

Dates

Creation: circa 1999-2005

Access to the Materials

Collection is open for research use. Materials may be accessed by request at Special Collections and University Archives in Seidman House. Materials do not circulate.

Publication Rights

The collection is the physical property of Grand Valley State University, but all literary rights are retained by the original creators of materials, their estates, heirs, or third parties. It is the responsibility of the researcher to secure appropriate permissions for publication beyond the bounds of fair use.

Historical Note

The 461st Bombardment Group (Heavy) was activated during World War II in 1943 as a combat organization of the United States Army Air Force at Wendover Field, Utah. It trained at several airfields in Utah, Idaho, and California with groups undergoing combat simulation training at the Army Air Force School of Applied Tactics in Florida. The unit was deployed to the Mediterranean Theater of Operations in February 1944, flying B-24 Liberators, before joining the ground echelon in Italy.

The group's combat operations included long range strategic bombing of Nazi Germany and Occupied Europe, chiefly targeting communications, industries, and other strategic ojectives in France, Germany, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Austria, Romania, Yugoslavia, and Greece. AFter the German Capitulation, the group dropped supplies to prisoner of war camps in Austria.

In June 1945 the group was alerted for redeployment to the Pacific Theater and programmed for Very Heavy bomber training with B-29 Superfortresses. However, while the unit was waiting for personnel and aircraft, the Japanese capitulated, ending the war, and the unit was inactivated in August 1945.