Dates: 1910 - 1979
During the Quebec Conference in August 1943, President Franklin D. Roosevelt was impressed by Brigadier Orde Wingate’s account of what could be done in Burma with proper air support. To comply with Roosevelt’s proposed air support for British long range penetration operations in Burma, the USAAF created the 5318th Air Unit that was redesignated "Provisional Composite No. 1 Air Commandos" and tasked with supporting the Chindits. Eventually they were designated the 1st Air Commando Group in March 1944 by General Hap Arnold.
The commander of the Air Commandos was Colonel Philip Cochran (1910-1979), a model for a main character named "Flip Corkin" in the Terry and the Pirates (comic strip).
The group consisted of C-47 air transports, Waco CG 4A military gliders, a squadron of P-51 Mustangs, a squadron of B-25H bombers, and L-1 and L-5 Sentinel liaison aircraft. All of the planes were marked with five diagonal white stripes at the back end of the fuselage. The group also tested the United States’ first use of a helicopter in combat, the Sikorsky R-4, in May of 1944.
The Chindits were delighted to hear they had their own private air force. John Masters’ Chindit memoirs The Road Past Mandalay stated that the Chindits’ relationship with the Royal Air Force was problematic saying "Whatever we asked them to do they declared to be difficult, impossible or against Air Force policy. Whatever they offered to do, we didn’t need"
Cochran earned the Chindits’ respect by agreeing to letting them call in air support themselves and evacuating a Chindit injured in a training accident by landing an L-5 in a field 400 feet long when 600 feet was the minimum.
Later in the campaign under the designation of the 1st Air Commando Force, they supported other units of the British Fourteenth Army during their victorious drive to Rangoon. One of the glider pilots who participated in landing the Chindits was actor Jackie Coogan.
After a glider training accident, the Commander of the Chindits General Orde Wingate sent the 1st Air Commando a message:
"Please be assured that we will go with your boys, any place, any time, any where."
It was adopted by the 1st Air Commando as their motto, and in an abbreviated form this is still used as the motto of the USAF Special Operations Command.
The unit was deactivated on November 3, 1945.
Forces Reunited Forum Posts involving Commando Group
" Back on the topic of NS. I worked in the Registry at the Roayl Marrine Barracks and got all the casualty list especially from the Commando Groups in Aden and now where on any of them was there a specific stamp that said they were regular or NS. The enemy didn’t care. Rita "
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" Quoting: Gemmell Back on the topic of NS. I worked in the Registry at the Roayl Marrine Barracks and got all the casualty list especially from the Commando Groups in Aden and now where on any of them was there a specific stamp that said they were regular or NS. The enemy didn’t care. Rita ..."
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" Following a night-time helicopter and ground assault conducted by British, Afghan and Canadian troops, a huge haul of lethal weapons and bomb-making equipment has been recovered from a Taliban stronghold near Kandahar. Operation Shahi Tandar (Royal Storm) took place north of Kandahar City last ..."
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" Royal Marines and Afghan National Army troops launched an operation in enemy territory last week resulting in the capture of a Taliban command post, a suspected IED (Improvised Explosive Device) factory and a huge haul of weapons. Operation GHARTSE PALANG, which means ’Lion’, ..."
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" First World War veteran William Stone is buried near his home William Stone would have lost count of the number of times he had heard Last Post sounded, from the funerals of old comrades to the Remembrance Sunday parades he attended as one of the last surviving veterans of the First World War. ..."
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