The 24th Tactical Missile Squadron is an inactive United States Air Force unit. It was last active as the 74th Air Defense Missile Squadron assigned to the 23d Air Division of Aerospace Defense Command, stationed near Duluth Municipal Airport, Minnesota, where it was inactivated in 1972. The squadron's earliest predecessor was active early in World War II as an antisubmarine unit in the Caribbean and Europe until its mission was transferred to the United States Navy. During the Cold War it was a training unit for Matador cruise missiles. Its most recently active predecessor was an air defense missile squadron in the northern United States from 1960 to 1972. History World War II Antisubmarine Operations The squadron was first activated as the 40th Bombardment Squadron (Medium) in early 1941 as one of the four squadrons of the 13th Bombardment Group, an element of First Air Force, equipped with B-18 Bolos at Langley Field, Virginia. After the United States entered World War II the group was ordered to search for German U-boats and to fly aerial coverage of friendly convoys off the northeast Atlantic, protecting the Boston and New York City shipping lanes. The squadron deployed to Guantanamo Bay Naval Base, Cuba and was attached to the Caribbean Sea Frontier of the United States Navy to patrol northern Caribbean waters, then to airfields in Jamaica, Trinidad and Surinam during 1942, flying antisubmarine missions. The squadron was redesignated as the 4th Antisubmarine Squadron and was assigned to the 25th Antisubmarine Wing of the Army Air Forces Antisubmarine Command in November 1942, when the 13th Group was inactivated and returned to Mitchel Field, New York before being reassigned to RCAF Station Gander, Newfoundland, flying antisubmarine patrols over the Grand Banks of Newfoundland and North Atlantic shipping lanes performing convoy escort patrols. The squadron moved to southwestern England in June 1943 and was reassigned to 479th Antisubmarine Group in July. It flew killer hunts against German U-boats in the Bay of Biscay off the western coast of France from Brest south to the Spanish border. Along this part of the occupied French coast were major Kriegsmarine U-boat bases at Brest, Lorient, Saint-Nazaire, La Rochelle (La Pallice) and Bordeaux. The squadron's air echelon inactivated in late October 1943 with its aircraft being reassigned to the United States Navy after the inactivation of AAF Antisubmarine Command. Squadron personnel were reassigned to Eighth Air Force units as