The United States Air Force and Humanitarian Airlift Operations 1947-1994

: Humanitarian airlift is a U.S. tradition older than the U.S. Air Force. It is almost as old as military aviation itself. Just twelve years after the establishment in 1907 of the Signal Corps' Aeronautical Division, the airplane became an instrument of disaster relief. Humanitarian airlift missions continued through the Roaring Twenties and the Great Depression. Even the vast commitments of World War II did not halt humanitarian airlifts by the U.S. military. The USAF continued the relief airlift tradition during the Cold War and beyond, conducting about 560 relief airlifts in the years between its establishment in 1947 as an independent service and 1994.