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The Fifteenth Air Force (15 AF) is a numbered air force of the United States Air Force's Air Combat Command (ACC). It is headquartered at Shaw Air Force Base . It was reactivated on 20 August 2020, merging the previous units of the Ninth Air Force and Twelfth Air Force into a new numbered air force responsible for generating and presenting Air ...
Fifteenth Air Force was established on 1 November 1943 as part of the United States Army Air Forces in the World War II Mediterranean Theater of Operations as a strategic air force and commenced combat operations the day after it was formed.
Located approximately 16 km (9.9 mi) northeast of Foggia. 41°32′29.98″N 015°42′44.92″E. Captured Regia Aeronautica airfield used by Fifteenth Air Force, primarily for heavy bombardment units. Repaired by COE in September 1943 and put into use immediately.
- 1920s-1944
- Military airfields
The AAF’s Fifteenth Air Force was a war baby, born in Italy after a brief gestation and as the result of induced labor. It had a short life—just 22 months. It lived in the shadow of its older and much bigger brother and strategic partner, the England-based Eighth Air Force.
Mission. Fifteenth Air Force, headquartered at Shaw Air Force Base, South Carolina, is a Numbered Air Force (NAF) under Air Combat Command activated Aug. 20, 2020. Fifteenth AF trains Airmen to deliver combat airpower worldwide and provides a light, lean, and agile Air Force, Joint, or Combined Task Force Headquarters.
Overshadowed by the Mighty Eighth in England, the Fifteenth Air Force flew out of Italy and played no less important—and every bit as dangerous—a role in bombing targets in Nazi Germany and elsewhere.
In the postwar years it became one of Strategic Air Command's primary numbered air forces. Upon its transfer to Air Mobility Command in 1992, Fifteenth Air Force assumed responsibility for airlift and air refueling missions. Beginning in 2003, served as an expeditionary task force conducting air mobility operations in support of worldwide ...
