The United States Army Air Forces troop carrier mission began in the early days of World War II, transferred to the new United States Air Force in 1947 and continued through the Vietnam War, although all troop carrier units were redesignated as “tactical airlift” on July 1, 1967. From 1942 to 1975 troop carrier crews and their tactical airlift successors operated all over the world on combat missions and missions of mercy. Their efforts were usually unheralded and often unappreciated; they were looked down on by their peers in fighters and credit for their actions was often taken by the Military Air Transport Service public information office. Still, troop carriers soldiered on, often sleeping in tents (or in their airplanes) eating meals of C-rations using the "TAC spoon" that all troop carrier crewmembers carried in the sleeve pocket of their flight suits and rising to the occasion whenever the situation called for the utmost courage and airmanship. Troop carriers were assigned to one of five commands - Tactical Air Command, Pacific Air Forces (Far East Air Forces during the Korean War), Alaska Air Command and Southern Command. During the 1950s Troop Carriers flew C-47s, C-46s, C-54s, C-119s, C-123s and C-124s. In 1957, as the C-130 was entering the inventory, all TAC and PACAF C-124s transferred to the Military Air Transport Service, although they retained their troop carrier identity and were dedicated to Tactical Air Command for a wartime role. In 1966 the Air Force picked up the Dehavilland CV-2 Caribou mission from the Army and redesignated them as C-7As. The mission reached its post-WW II zenith during the Vietnam War, when troop carrier/tactical airlift crews were called on to lay their lives on the line to deliver supplies to besieged outposts and, in one case, to evacuate American and Vietnamese soldiers and civilians from a remote camp in the face of a superior force. The mission ended in 1975 when Military Airlift Command took over all US Air Force airlift operations, but the spirit and heritage lived on in the MAC tactical airlift squadrons and in the special operations squadrons that remained in TAC for a time, then became part of the Special Operations Command. This site is dedicated to and is for the use of all veterans of that mission.