United States Air Force
The U.S. War Department created the first antecedent of the U.S. Air Force, as a part of the U.S. Army, on 1 August 1907, which through a succession of changes of organization, titles, and missions advanced toward eventual independence 40 years later. In World War II, almost 68,000 U.S. airmen died helping to win the war, with only the infantry suffering more casualties. In practice, the U.S. Army Air Forces (USAAF) was virtually independent of the Army during World War II, and in virtually all ways functioned as an independent service branch, but airmen still pressed for formal independence. The National Security Act of 1947 was signed on 26 July 1947 by President Harry S Truman, which established the Department of the Air Force, but it was not until 18 September 1947, when the first secretary of the Air Force, W. Stuart Symington, was sworn into office that the Air Force was officially formed as an independent service branch.
List of United States Air Force squadrons
This is a list of United States Air Force squadrons. It covers both the independent United States Air Force (USAF) and its period as a branch of the US Army culminating as the Army Air Forces up to 1947. All numbered USAF squadrons are assigned numbers from 1 to 999, with the block 101 to 300 being reserved for the Air National Guard. Generally speaking the numbers in the 900 block are post World War II units, they may however be consolidated units with lineage and heraldry dating back to World War II or even early as part of the Air Service. The only official source of lineage information is provided by the Air Force Historical Research Agency at Maxwell Air Force Base, Alabama. The only official sources of heraldry information are the AFHRA and the Institute of Heraldry, Fort Belvoir, Virginia.