Mountain Home Air Force Base, Elmore County, Idaho, USA
Notizen:
Wikipedia 2016:
Mountain Home Air Force Base (IATA: MUO, ICAO: KMUO, FAA LID: MUO) is a United States Air Force installation located in southwestern Idaho, United States. The base is in Elmore County, 12 mi (19 km) southwest of the city of Mountain Home, which is 40 mi (64 km) southeast of Boise, via Interstate 84.
The host unit at Mountain Home since 1972 has been the 366th Fighter Wing (366 FW) of the Air Combat Command (ACC), nicknamed the "Gunfighters." The base's primary mission is to provide combat airpower and combat support capabilities to respond to and sustain worldwide contingency operations.
Part of the base is a census-designated place (CDP); the population was 3,238 at the 2010 census.
History:
Crews started building the base in November 1942 and the new field officially opened on 7 August 1943. Shortly thereafter, airmen at the field began training U.S. Army Air Forces crews for World War II. The 396th Bombardment Group (Heavy) was the first unit assigned and its planned mission was to train crews for the B-17 Flying Fortress. However, before the first B-17s arrived, plans for the field changed and the 396th was transferred to Moses Lake AAF, Washington.
Instead of training B-17 crews, Mountain Home airmen began training crews for the B-24 Liberator. The first group to do so was the 470th Bombardment Group (Heavy), which trained at Mountain Home from May 1943 until January 1944, when the unit moved to Tonopah AAF Nevada. The 490th Bombardment Group (Heavy) replaced the 470th and trained B-24 crews until it deployed to RAF Eye England in April 1944. The 494th Bombardment Group then replaced the 490th, once more training Liberator crews.
Senator George McGovern (1922–2012) was a pilot in the USAAF, and did his second stage of B-24 training here. McGovern served 24 years in both houses of Congress from South Dakota, and was the Democratic nominee in the presidential election of 1972.
The base also received fighter aircraft to add realism to its training. A few P-38 Lightning and P-63 Kingcobra pursuit planes arrived in January 1945 to simulate attacks on B-24s. In June 1945, Mountain Home also briefly served as a training base for the new B-29 Superfortress with the 301st Bombardment Group (Very Heavy) training for combat, but the Japanese surrender in August brought a swift end to the new mission and, for a time, to the base at Mountain Home.
The base was placed in inactive status in October 1945.
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