Established as a B-17 Flying Fortress Operational Training Unit (OTU) for replacement personnel under Second Air Force. Trained pilots and aircrews from July 1942 to April 1944. Realigned as an operational B-29 Superfortress very heavy bomb group in July 1944. Trained under Second Air Force until June 1945, being deployed to Okinawa as part of the new Eighth Air Force in the Pacific Theater. Arrived in Okinawa but Japanese Capitulation led to drawdown of Eighth Air Force and the group never was engaged in combat. Flew show-of-force missions over Occupied Japan and aircraft helped evacuate prisoners of war from Japan and China to airfields in the Philippines. Personnel demobilized and aircraft flown to storage in the United States in May 1946 and the unit was inactivated as a paper unit in Okinawa on 28 May.