Description

21st Airlift Squadron Beeliners (Travis AFB) C-17 Model

Fly with the 21st Airlift Squadron Beeliners (Travis AFB)) in this handcrafted C-17 Globemaster Model. Each piece is carved from wood and hand painted to provide a piece you’ll love.

Length – 18 inches

The 21st Airlift Squadron is part of the 60th Air Mobility Wing at Travis Air Force Base, California. It operates C-17 Globemaster III aircraft carrying out United States Air Force global transport missions, duties which involve airlift and airdrop missions as well as provision of services and support in order to promote quality of life for both soldiers and civilians in situations requiring humanitarian aid.

First formed as the 21st Transport Squadron at Archerfield Airport, Australia on 3 April 1942. Activated in the wake of the United States withdrawal from the Philippines, the squadron was formed with a mixture of personnel withdrawn from Clark Field and some reinforcements which had arrived in Australia but did not see combat in the Philippines. The squadron was hastily put together with some impressed civilian Douglas DC-2s and DC-3s.

History
World War II
The squadron’s origins date to the activation of the 21st Transport Squadron at Archerfield Airport, Australia on 3 April 1942.[1] Activated in the wake of the United States withdrawal from the Philippines, the squadron was formed with a mixture of personnel withdrawn from Clark Field and some reinforcements which had arrived in Australia but did not see combat in the Philippines. The squadron was hastily put together with some impressed civilian Douglas DC-2s and DC-3s with a mission of transporting personnel, equipment and supplies within Australia, organizing American and Australian forces against the perceived Japanese invasion of Australia.

Over the next few months the squadron was assigned additional aircraft, flying derivatives of the Lockheed C-56 and C-60 Lodestar along with a war-weary four-engine Boeing B-17D Flying Fortress withdrawn from the Philippines and a Douglas B-18 Bolo which had found its way to the South Pacific. The squadron entered combat on 5 July 1942, being redesignated the 21st Troop Carrier Squadron. It participated in paratroop drops at Nadzab, New Guinea, in September 1942. It continued to fly combat resupply and casualty evacuation missions from Brisbane.

In November 1942 the squadron was assigned to the 374th Troop Carrier Group. The 374th was a newly arrived group from the United States and arrived with new Douglas C-47 Skytrains. The mixture of aircraft the squadron was formed with were reassigned to other units. With the 374th the squadron continued to fly combat missions over New Guinea.

The squadron moved to Nadzab Airfield, New Guinea in August 1944 to support the Allied effort to push Japanese forces off the island. The fierce fighting in tropical and mountainous New Guinea continued until 1945. It proved to be one of the most important and difficult campaigns in the Pacific War. The squadron moved to Mokmer Airfield, on Biak, Papua New Guinea in October 1944, and remained there until the end of the war, as American forces continued to engage the Japanese in Southwest Asia until the end of the war in August 1945.