Eastern Air Defense Force: Difference between revisions

Eastern Air Defense Force Air Defense Command
Emblem of the Eastern Air Defense Force
Active	1949–1960
Country	United States
Branch	United States Air Force
Role	Air Defense
Part of	Air Defense Command

The Eastern Air Defense Force (EADF) is an inactive United States Air Force organization. Its last assignment was with Air Defense Command being stationed at Stewart Air Force Base, New York. It was inactivated on July 1, 1960.

EADF was an intermediate-level command and control organization of Air Defense Command. It's origins date to 1 March 1949 when Continental Air Command (ConAC) reorganized Air Defense Command when it became an operating agency. Air defense units within the Continental United States (CONUS) were given to the Eastern and Western Air Defense Liaison Groups, with Western and Eastern Air Defense Forces activated on 1 September 1949.

The command was originally assigned the region within the Continental United States (CONUS) to the east of the 102d degree of longitude, along the Canadian border to the most easternmost point of Maine; the southern boundary being the 102d degree of longitude along the Rio Grande River boundary with Mexico, east to the southernmost point of Texas and along the Gulf of Mexico and Atlantic Ocean coastlines.

This was adjusted in 1951 with the activation of Central Air Defense Force (CADF) with the region being adjusted to the area east of the 90th degree of longitude south to the point of the Missouri, Kentucky and Tennessee state boundaries, and eastward to the Atlantic Ocean coastline along the Tennessee/Kentucky and Virginia/North Carolina border, with all areas north and east of those boundaries. Organizations stationed west and south of that delineation were transferred to CADF.

• Established as Eastern Air Defense Force and organized September 1, 1949.

Discontinued July 1, 1960

• Continental Air Command, September 1, 1949 – January 1, 1951
• Air Defense Command, January 1, 1951 – July 1, 1960

• Mitchel AFB, New York, September 1, 1949 – August 1, 1950
• Stewart AFB, New York, August 1, 1950 – July 1, 1960

• 152d Aircraft Control and Warning Group

Federalized New Hampshire Air National Guard, 1 September 1951

Stationed at Grenier AFB, New Hampshire

Assigned to Eastern Air Defense Force

Re-assigned to 32d Air Division, 6 February 1952

• 156th Aircraft Control and Warning Group

Federalized Michigan Air National Guard, 16 September 1951

Stationed at Selfridge AFB, Michigan

Headquarters remained at Selfridge AFB, personnel deployed to locations in the Chicago, Illinois area

Inactivated and returned to state control, 6 February 1952

• 4700th Air Defense Group

Stationed at Stewart AFB, New York

Re-assigned to Eastern Air Defense Force from Air Defense Command, 1 January 1951

Re-assigned to 4709th Air Defense Wing, 20 September 1954

• Central Air Defense Force
• Western Air Defense Force

 This article incorporates public domain material from the Air Force Historical Research Agency

• USAF Aerospace Defense Command publication, The Interceptor, January 1979 (Volume 21, Number 1)
• Maurer, Maurer (1983). Air Force Combat Units Of World War II. Maxwell AFB, Alabama: Office of Air Force History. ISBN 0-89201-092-4
• Ravenstein, Charles A. (1984). Air Force Combat Wings Lineage and Honors Histories 1947–1977. Maxwell AFB, Alabama: Office of Air Force History. ISBN 0-912799-12-9
• A Handbook of Aerospace Defense Organization 1946 - 1980, by Lloyd H. Cornett and Mildred W. Johnson, Office of History, Aerospace Defense Center, Peterson Air Force Base, Colorado
• Winkler, David F. (1997), Searching the skies: the legacy of the United States Cold War defense radar program. Prepared for United States Air Force Headquarters Air Combat Command.