30th and 31st. Three Marauders were lost during the month's stay. On the continent, the 397th struck enemy positions at St Malo and Brest and bombed targets in the Rouen area as Allied armies swept across the Seine and advanced to the Siegfried Line. The group began flying missions into Germany in September, attacking such targets as bridges, defended areas, and storage depots. The 397th struck the enemy's communications during the Battle of the Bulge (December 1944 – January 1945) and received a Distinguished Unit Citation for a mission on 23 December 1944 when the group withstood heavy flak and fighter attack to sever a railway bridge at Eller, a vital link in the enemy's supply line across the Moselle. The group continued to support the Allied drive into Germany until April 1945, being stationed at Venlo, the Netherlands (Y-55) on VE-Day. It returned to the United States during December 1945 – January 1946, being inactivated at Camp Kilmer, New Jersey on 6 January 1946. Strategic Air Command On 1 August 1958, Strategic Air Command (SAC) organized the 4038th Strategic Wing at Dow AFB, Maine and assigned it to the 820th Air Division on 1 January 1959 as part of SAC's plan to disperse its Boeing B-52 Stratofortress heavy bombers over a larger number of bases, thus making it more difficult for the Soviet Union to knock out the entire fleet with a surprise first strike. The wing remained a headquarters only until 1 February 1960 when the 4060th Air Refueling Wing was discontinued and its support organizations transferred to the 4038th in addition to the 71st and 341st Air Refueling Squadrons, flying Boeing KC-97s. Fifteen days later the 341st Bombardment Squadron (BS) moved to Dow from its previous station at Blytheville AFB, Arkansas where it had been one of the three squadrons assigned to the 97th Bombardment Wing and re-equipped with 15 B-52Gs. Starting in 1960, one third of the wing's aircraft were maintained on fifteen-minute alert, fully fueled and ready for combat to reduce vulnerability to a Soviet missile strike. This was increased to half the unit's aircraft in 1962. On 1 April 1961, the wing was transferred to the control of the 6th Air Division. In 1962, the wing bombers began to be equipped with the GAM-77 Hound Dog and the GAM-72 Quail air-launched cruise missiles, The 4038th Airborne Missile Maintenance Squadron was activated in November to