Seventy Years Ago: 27th Air Depot Squadron

While marines and supporting Navy forces were on their way to Guadalcanal in early August 1942, the 27th Air Depot Group was finishing its period of Preparing for Overseas Movement (POM) in Mobile, Alabama.

The Air Depot Group was a new organizational concept, planned to provide fourth echelon (whatever that means) services to air combat forces near forward areas. The concept of having air depot groups in the forward area was new. So new that the table of organization (T/O) was not issued until June, 1942. Efforts to organize for going overseas couldn't be completed until the T/O was available.

Here is a standard organizational chart an Air Depot Group issued June 15, 1942.



By early August, 1942, the 27th Air Depot Group was substantially organized in Mobile, Alabama. By mid-month the group and all of its equipment was staged for shipping by train to San Francisco.

My father, then a Tech Sgt. in the US Army Air Forces, was among the officers, non-commissioned officers and enlisted men who left Mobile in mid-August. Destination: the South Pacific.