Talk:335th Bombardment Group

Merger

475th Bombardment Squadron had no existence other than its two years with the 335th Group as a training unit. Any expansion of that article would duplicate what is in this article. it has no notability separate from the 335th Group. --Lineagegeek (talk) 00:09, 3 March 2021 (UTC)

• Support merge of all four squadrons. The 335th Bombardment Group is described here as having had four squadrons
  • 474th Bombardment Squadron - redirect to 474th Tactical Fighter Squadron since 3 March 2021, but that article doesn't say that the unit formed in 1957 was a successor of the one disbanded in 1944, it says they were combined in 1985 into 474th Tactical Electronic Warfare Squadron which has never flown.
  • 475th Bombardment Squadron - subject of this merge proposal
  • 476th Bombardment Squadron - current proposed merge to 476th Tactical Fighter Squadron, for the same historic lineage of 476th Tactical Electronic Warfare Squadron as the 474th already shows
  • 477th Bombardment Squadron - not displaying a merge proposal, but 477th Tactical Fighter Squadron says it should be merged there

It seems to me that the four Bombardment squadrons had a shared experience as part of the WW2 335th Bombardment Group. They did not evolve into the cold war Tactical Fighter squadrons, but were later merged for ceremonial or administrative purposes with the tactical fighter squadrons into post-cold-war inactive Electronic Warfare squadrons. I only got here from Category:Articles to be merged from March 2021 so don't really have any subject matter expertise. I'd support merging to 335th for all four squadrons, and moving the active bombardment history bit from the unrelated tactical fighter squadron articles. The 475th and 477th articles are almost identical text, and have barely changed since they were created in 2010. The fighter squadrons have more text about the bombardment squadrons, but I think it may be duplicated from this bombardment group page. --Scott Davis ^Talk 09:50, 5 March 2021 (UTC)

ScottDavis I don't know how you determine the consolidation was "for ceremonial or administrative purposes." The units were consolidated, just like many other units have been in the past and later, including essentially all US Air Service World War I aero squadrons that still exist (see 25th Space Range Squadron). The US Air Force treats such units are a single unit for all purposes once consolidated. Wikipedia policy is that articles about a unit should be placed at "Name (optional disambiguator)". The name should generally be the official name used by the armed forces to which the unit belongs. When a unit or base has had multiple names over the course of its existence, the title should generally be the last name used. The official name of the consolidated units is their most recent name. However, the articles are located at the name of the fighter units under the provision for exceptions in cases where the subject is clearly more commonly known by one of the previous names. The periods of fighter operations are much longer than the brief period as a B-26 training unit, and in one case involve campaign participation and a decoration, making the fighter page the appropriate location for the article on a single unit. WP:MILMOS#UNITNAME --Lineagegeek (talk) 22:54, 26 March 2021 (UTC)

@Lineagegeek: do surviving veterans and descendants of members of the squadrons which formed 335th Bombardment Group now think of themselves as veterans of tactical EW or fighter squadrons? I would expect that the veteran groups (I don't know the US names - sorry) would organise with the bombardment group, not with the fighter group, and that is where readers would look for information. I'm not even sure what formation the Tactical EW squadrons are part of now. --Scott Davis ^Talk 23:23, 26 March 2021 (UTC)

ScottDavis No they would not think of themselves as veterans of the bombardment squadrons. These were schools, "pass-through" organizations, and the graduates would think of themselves as veterans of whatever combat unit they wound up in after graduation. Perhaps the best solution would be to shorten the WW II sections of the fighter pages and insert a {{Maijn|335th Bombardment Group}} tag after the header. --Lineagegeek (talk) 23:05, 27 March 2021 (UTC)

@Lineagegeek: I'm OK with that. The WW2 bomber history and details belong in the 335th Bombardment Group article for all four squadrons, with a sentence or short paragraph and {{main}} or other link from the fighter/tactical EW articles. There could also be link(s) from the Bombardment Group article to the Tactical Electronic Warfare Squadrons/Group, but the only connection to the fighter squadrons is that they were consolidated with them when they were redesignated to tactical EW. Thanks for engaging. Let me know if you need help in making it happen. --Scott Davis ^Talk 13:26, 28 March 2021 (UTC)

ScottDavis I've edited 476th Tactical Fighter Squadron to what I propose. I'll let you take look before I complete the mergers. I also thought it appropriate to add a sentence concerning the consolidations at the end of the History section of this article, which I have done. --Lineagegeek (talk) 21:38, 28 March 2021 (UTC)

@Lineagegeek: The addition to 335th Bombardment Group looks good. The fighter squadron article to me still looks confused. I'd turn the lead around so that it introduces the 476th Tactical Fighter Squadron which is the title of the article and was the active unit name. Then the bomber training section can be dropped from the history to focus on the fighter operations. The sentence at the end of the history can expand to a (sub-)section 476th Tactical Electronic Warfare Squadron that says it was created by consolidating the inactive fighter squadron with an inactive bomber squadron(with link). Does that make sense? It conflicts with "the title should generally be the last name used", but I'm not sure the TEW squadrons (or even the wing/group containing them) would actually pass [{WP:GNG]] if they didn't have the fighter and bomber heritage. It may be that the fighter squadron articles end up looking similar enough that it would also make sense to consolidate them into a new 479th Fighter-Day Wing article, drawing also from the article that title presently redirects to. --Scott Davis ^Talk 23:09, 28 March 2021 (UTC)