It was established in late 1944 as a very long range Republic P-47N Thunderbolt fighter squadron. It trained under III Fighter Command. The 456th was deployed to Pacific Theater of Operations, and assigned to XXI Bomber Command as a long-range escort squadron for B-29 Superfortress bombers engaged in the strategic bombardment of Japan, based on Iwo Jima. After the Japanese capitulation, it was moved to Luzon where the squadron was demobilized; the P-47Ns were returned to storage depots in the United States. It was inactivated as a paper unit in 1946.
Cold War Air Defense
456th FIS North American F-86L Sabres at Castle AFB, California, February 1958
It was reactivated in 1954 under Air Defense Command as an air defense interceptor squadron, and stationed at Truax Field, Wisconsin for the air defense of the Great Lakes. It was equipped with North American F-86D Sabres. In August 1955 the unit was inactivated, and was reactivated at Castle Air Force Base, California in October 1955 with North American F-86D Sabres. In 1957 it began re-equipping with the North American North American F-86L Sabre, an improved version of the F-86D which incorporated the Semi Automatic Ground Environment, or SAGE computer-controlled direction system for intercepts. The service of the F-86L was brief, since by the time the last F-86L conversion was delivered, the type was already being phased out in favor of supersonic interceptors.
On 22 October 1962, before President John F. Kennedy told Americans that missiles were in place in Cuba, the squadron dispersed one third of its force, equipped with nuclear tipped missiles to Fresno Air Terminal at the start of the Cuban Missile Crisis.[3][4] These planes returned to Castle after the crisis.
McMullen, Richard F. (November 1964). The Fighter Interceptor Force 1962 – 1964(PDF). ADC Historical Study No. 27. Ent Air Force Base, Colorado: Air Defense Command. – Formerly Confidential, declassified 22 March 2000.
NORAD/CONAD Participation in the Cuban Missile Crisis(PDF). Historical Reference Paper No. 8. Ent Air Force Base, Colorado: Continental Air Defense Command, Directorate of Command History. 1 February 1963. – Formerly Top Secret NOFORN, declassified 9 March 1996.
"ADCOM's Fighter Interceptor Squadrons". The Interceptor. 21 (1). Aerospace Defense Command: 5–11, 26–31, 40–45, 54–59. January 1979.