near Kobe and Osaka during June 1945. Operations also included strikes against Japanese airfields during the Battle of Okinawa in April 1945. The group released propaganda leaflets over the Japanese home islands, July–August, continuing strategic bombing raids and incendiary attacks until the Japanese capitulation in August 1945. In November 1945 the unit returned to the United States; initially being assigned to Continental Air Forces's (CAF) Fourth Air Force at March Field, California. At March Field, the 514th Bombardment Squadron joined the group; it previously being a Fifteenth Air Force B-24 Liberator squadron based in Italy, having been returned to the United States in May and was undergoing B-29 Very Heavy Bomber upgrade training in Nebraska when its former assigned group, the 376th Bombardment Group, was inactivated. In January 1946, the 73d Bombardment Wing and the 498th Group under it was reassigned to the CAF Third Air Force at MacDill Field, Florida. It later was transferred to the new Strategic Air Command on 21 March 1946, being one of SAC's initial bombardment groups. Demobilization, however, was in full swing and the group turned in its aircraft and was inactivated on 4 August 1946. The 514th and 875th Bombardment Squadrons ended their service with the group that day. Its B-29 aircraft, personnel and equipment were retained, redesignated as the senior 307th Bombardment Group. The 307th Bombardment Group was activated at MacDill on the same day. Cold War The unit was redesignated and reactivated as the 498th Tactical Missile Group at Kadena Air Base, Okinawa, on 16 September 1960. It was organized on 8 Feb 1961. It was equipped with the TM-76B Mace surface-to-surface missile. The Mace was a third-generation tactical USAF missile, a follow-up of the MGM-1 Matador which had been developed in the late 1940s and early 1950s from the World War II-era Republic-Ford JB-2. Two of the unit's World War II bomb squadrons were reactivated, the 873d and 874th Tactical Missile Squadrons to man and operate the missile sites. The Group was assigned directly to Pacific Air Forces. The four group Mace sites were located at Bolo Point in Yomitan, Onna Point, White Beach, and in Kin just north of Camp Hansen. The presence of the Mace missile was a sensitive matter between the United States and Japan, even though the United States still formally occupied Okinawa. The presence of the nuclear-armed Mace missile on Japanese soil was considered so