716th Bombardment Squadron  The 716th Bombardment Squadron is an inactive United States Air Force unit. It was last assigned to the 449th Bombardment Wing at Kincheloe Air Force Base, Michigan, where it was inactivated on 30 September 1977. The squadron was first activated in May 1943. After training in the United States, the squadron deployed to the Mediterranean Theater of Operations, where it participated in the strategic bombing campaign against Germany. The squadron was awarded two Distinguished Unit Citations for its actions during the war. Following V-E Day, the 716th returned to the United States and trained with Boeing B-29 Superfortresses, becoming one of the first bomber units in Strategic Air Command (SAC) before inactivating in August 1946. The squadron was reactivated by SAC at Kincheloe in 1963 and served with Boeing B-52 Stratofortress aircraft until inactivating. The squadron was first activated in May 1943 at Davis-Monthan Field, Arizona as one of the four original squadrons of the 449th Bombardment Group. It trained with Consolidated B-24 Liberators at Alamogordo Army Air Field, New Mexico and Bruning Army Air Field, Nebraska before departing for the Mediterranean Theater of Operations in November 1943. The squadron assembled at its combat station, Grottaglie Airfield in Southern Italy, in early January 1944, from which it mainly undertook strategic bombing missions. It attacked oil refineries, communications centers, aircraft factories and industrial facilities in Italy, Germany, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Romania, Albania and Greece. It was awarded a Distinguished Unit Citation (DUC) for its actions on 4 April 1944, when the squadron, along with the other elements of the 449th Group, operated without fighter escort in an attack on railroad marshalling yards near Bucharest. The attacking group was heavily outnumbered by German interceptor aircraft. Despite this, it succeeded in destroying its assigned target and also inflicted heavy losses on the defending fighters. It was awarded a second DUC for an attack against oil refineries near Ploesti, attacking through heavy smoke that obscured the target area and despite intense enemy fire. The squadron attacked gun emplacements to support Operation Dragoon, the invasion of southern France in August 1944. It attacked troop concentrations, bridges and viaducts during Operation Grapeshot, the Fifteenth Army Group offensive in Northern Italy in the Spring of 1945. Shortly after V-E Day, in May 1945, the squadron returned to the United States.