The wing was not tactically operational 11 March 1963 – 15 September 1963, while converting to B-52D bombers and KC-135A tankers.
The senior 91st SMW had organizational roots dating from World War II and had been deployed from Glasgow AFB to Southeast Asia, where it had been flying combat missions with the B-52 Stratofortress during the Vietnam War.
Beginning in the 1970s, CFB Shearwater began hosting an Armed Forces Day every fall, typically on the weekend following Labour Day, and included an air show where the long and wide runways at Shearwater hosted some of the largest aircraft in the world, including the U.S. Air Force's C-5 Galaxy transport planes and B-52 Stratofortress bombers.
During the Vietnam War he received acclaim from the mainstream media, and disdain from the American military, for his reporting on the effects of B-52 dumping runs on their way back to bases in Udon Thani, Thailand — when bombers didn't drop all their payload over Hanoi, they dumped their bombs in Laos to cut the risk of accidents on landing, which led to innocent rural Lao and Hmong being killed.
The central then automatically transmitted guidance commands to the aircraft (lead aircraft for multi-ship formations, e.g., 3 Boeing B-52 Stratofortresses) to adjust the bomb run toward an eventual release point for the actual bomb(s).
The Loring Air Force Base Alert Area is a former alert area for B-52 Stratofortress aircraft of the 42d Bombardment Wing situated at the former Loring Air Force Base at Limestone, Maine.
The scene involves Colonels James Caldwell (played by Rock Hudson) and Hollis Farr (played by Rod Taylor) standing a few thousand feet down the runway, and watching B-52 Stratofortresses take off at fifteen second intervals.
Throughout the day, the TACP forward air controllers and Special Forces recce teams that had infiltrated into the area the previous day called in airstrikes from B-1, B-52, F-15, F-18 and F-16 aircraft, inflicting heavy casualties on the Taliban and Al Qaeda fighters, but by no means silencing them.
The base later was home to the 306th Bombardment Wing operating the B-52 Stratofortress and the KC-135 Stratotanker.
Brigadier General Antonio Maldonado, who in 1967 became the youngest pilot and Aircraft Commander of a B-52 Stratofortress nuclear bomber, was assigned in January 1971 to the 432nd Tactical Fighter Reconnaissance Wing, Udon Royal Thai Air Force Base in Thailand.
Operation Head Start, a Cold War operation in which B-52 Stratofortress bombers were launched and placed on rotation off Greenland and Canada