The 48th Rescue Squadron trains, equips, and employs combat-ready pararescuemen, combat rescue officers, and supporting personnel worldwide in support of U.S. national security interests. It provides survivor contact, treatment, and extraction during combat rescue operations, uses various fixed and rotary wing insertion and extraction assets. It employs by any means available to provide combat and humanitarian search, rescue, and medical assistance in all environments.
History
Activation and training mission
The squadron was first activated as the 48th Air Rescue Squadron in November 1952, when Air Rescue Service expanded its existing rescue squadrons into groups. The 48th was established with the assets of Flight C of the 5th Air Rescue Squadron at Maxwell Air Force Base, Alabama. In January 1955, the squadron moved to Eglin Air Force Base, Florida. At Maxwell and Eglin, the 48th flew search, rescue and recovery missions, mostly over water. At Eglin, the squadron added the mission of training rescue aircrews. The squadron was inactivated in February 1969 and ite mission transferred to the Aerospace Rescue and Recovery Training Center.
Survival School support
The squadron, now the 48th Aerospace Rescue and Recovery Squadron was reactivated at Fairchild Air Force Base, Washington in September 1972. It supported the 3636th Combat Crew Training Wing, which conducted the Air Force's advanced survival school at Fairchild, while continuing to fly search and rescue missions. The squadron was inactivated at Fairchild in August 1976. The squadron was again activated to support survival training in October 1985 at Homestead Air Force Base, Florida, where the USAF Water Survival School, run by a squadron of the 3636th Wing, was located. Again it flew SAR missions in addition to its training role. In addition, squadron personnel performed interdiction missions in support of the South Florida Drug Interdiction Task Force while at Homestead. In December 1987, the squadron was again inactivated.
Rescue in the southwest
The 48th was reactivated at Holloman Air Force Base, New Mexico in 1993 and for the next six years flew combat search and rescue missions. Its most recent activation at Davis–Monthan Air Force Base, Arizona in 2004 was as a "guardian angel" squadron, providing pararescuemen, flying on the aircraft and helicopters of the other squadrons of the 563d Rescue Group.
Lineage
Constituted as the 48th Air Rescue Squadron on 17 October 1952
Redesignated 48th Aerospace Rescue and Recovery Squadron on 14 September 1972
