The 720th Bombardment Squadron is an inactive United States Air Force unit. It was last assigned to the 450th Bombardment Wing at Minot Air Force Base, North Dakota, where it was inactivated on 25 July 1968. The squadron was first activated in 1943. After training with Consolidated B-24 Liberators in the United States, it deployed to the Mediterranean Theater of Operations, where it participated in the strategic bombing campaign against Germany, earning two Distinguished Unit Citations. After V-E Day, the squadron returned to the United States and was inactivated. During the 1950s, the squadron was twice activated as a fighter unit, in Alaska and in Texas. It returned to its bomber designation and was activated with Boeing B-52H Stratofortresses at Minot in 1963. History World War II Training in the United States The 720th Bombardment Squadron was first activated at Gowen Field, Idaho on 1 May 1943 as one of the four original squadrons of the 450th Bombardment Group. It soon moved to Clovis Army Air Field, New Mexico, where it was manned, drawing its cadre from the 355th Bombardment Squadron. and began to train with Consolidated B-24 Liberators. A cadre of the squadron was sent to the Army Air Forces School of Applied Tactics in June, where they received advanced heavy bomber tactical training. In November 1943, the 720th began moving overseas. The ground echelon proceeded to the port of embarkation at Camp Patrick Henry, sailing on the SS Henry Baldwin, while the aircrews staged at Herington Army Air Field, Kansas, and ferried their planes to the Mediterranean Theater of Operations via the South Atlantic Ferry Route. Combat operations The squadron arrived at its combat station, Manduria Airfield, Italy, in early January 1944 and began engaging in the strategic bombing campaign against Germany, primarily striking targets in Austria, Czechoslovakia, France, Germany, Hungary, Italy, and the Balkans. The first mission was flown against harbor installations at Zadar, Yugoslavia on 9 January. Targets included aircraft factories and assembly plants, oil refineries, marshalling yards, airfields and storage areas. On one of the squadron's early missions, an attack on an enemy airfield at Udine, Italy on 30 January, the squadron commander, Capt Clark J. Wicks, was fatally wounded. Shortly after arriving in theater, the squadron participated in Big Week, attacking aircraft factories at Regensburg, Germany and Steyr, Austria. It was awarded a Distinguished Unit Citation (DUC) for its attack on the Messerschmitt factory