Talk:Ohio Air National Guard

Personal note on the 160th Group/Wing
Note: A small comment here - the 160th was not designated as a WING unless that happened after my retirement in 1986. We were the 160th AREFG (Air Refueling Group), commanded at the time by Colonel Frank Cattran. The first SAC aircraft we received was a KC-135, tail number 1507, which was pretty much a mess -missing rivets, cracked NESA glass, filthy inside. However, after it was "Guardized" it went on to win the "best of show" award (a beautiful Wilkinson Sword trophy) at a military aircraft show in Europe several years later. We, while still a KC-97 unit, along with several other ANG refueling units around the country, served on a rotating deployment to Rhein-Main AB Germany on Operation Creek Party during the Viet-Nam war while the KC-135's of the regular Air Force operated out of South-East Asia. One of our last KC-97 aircraft, tail number 52-2630, which Colonel Cattran flew as "his" bird is on display at the U.S. Air Force Museum at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base in Dayton Ohio. I was the "avionics crew chief" assigned to that bird for maintenance and inspections. I am not publishing my name here, but my old comrades in the 160th may recognise me as "Super-V". I served as an Aircraft Electrician, Avionics Technician, and finally, First Sergeant in the 160th Consolidated Aircraft Maintenance Squadron (CAMS) for about 16 years. We moved the unit from our old base at Clinton County AFB in Wilmington, Ohio, to Lockbourne - later Rickenbacker AFB - when Clinton County closed down.
 * History log showed IP 76.178.116.18
 * inserted by LanceBarber 16:06, 3 December 2007 (UTC)

Proposed merge
A significant part of Ohio Air National Guard is duplicated closely, if not exactly, by 357th Fighter Group, which is not perhaps surprising as the OHANG was formed from remnants of 357th, when the latter was deactivated in 1946. I think that either the two articles should be merged, or if not, then the duplicate text should be removed from one of the articles, probably the 357th. Wikilinks between the two articles should remove the need to duplicate text. When text is duplicated in this fashion, it is inevitable that ongoing maintenance over time will result in differences developing between the two articles, causing confusion at best. --Romney yw (talk) 01:18, 19 February 2008 (UTC)
 * No merge, reduced the text on the 357th in the OANG article and use the See main construct to the 357th. The 357th article is way too large! This construct is use regularly to link to aircraft variants, aircraft operators, aircraft survivors list, etc. etc. This would be like merging the articles of the A-26 and B-26 aircrafts. Reduce the text of the Formation section to one or two sentence and use the See construct. LanceBarber (talk) 05:08, 19 February 2008 (UTC)


 * Oppose. Two separate entities, so this makes no sense. The 357th FG was never a National Guard outfit either before or during its WWII existence, was ONLY a World War II Group, and had no post-war history as a unit beyond a brief occupation duties covered in article. To preserve its WWII heritage, the USAF redesignated it as an ANG unit and that is its only link to the OHANG, its lineage being the 357th FG's 3 squadrons and ANG group redesignation, However that redesignated group no longer exists (the squadrons do in their ANG form) and the OHANG as a whole now traces its lineage to other organizations as well, at least one of which goes back to the Ohio National Guard. Further, to be clear, regarding "formed from the remnants", the OHANG was not formed from so much as a paper clip of the 357th FG. I did, however, edit out the "extraneous" material from the 357th's article.--Buckboard 05:32, 19 February 2008 (UTC)
 * Oppose. Same reasons as above. Bzuk (talk) 14:00, 19 February 2008 (UTC).

The OHANG article clearly suggests to me that OHANG was formed from the remnants of 357th FG. If you like OHANG is the last logical step in 357th history. However, after re-reading both articles in their current form in the light of comments here, I think we've got a pretty good solution without the duplicated text I was worried about. Agree merge is not required; I guess it's down to me to remove the "merge" templates?? --Romney yw (talk) 16:14, 19 February 2008 (UTC)
 * Re your last, I believe so. Not to beat a dead horse, but the 357th was inactivated on paper in Neubiberg Germany, where it had been ostensibly part of the occupation force, but by August 1946 without manpower or equipment. The next day, in the United States, the unit's designation was changed to the "121st FG", a unit number reserved for the Air National Guard, but no such unit existed other than on the list of unit designations. In 1947 the OHANG was created and received the 121st FG as its basis. The various ANGs were started by WWII veterans who got together almost like the militia in pre-Civil War days, formed units, and worked to receive Federal recognition. The OHANG was formed the same way, from scratch using local veterans. The 121st received its federal recognition on June 26, 1948, and thus was activated (in the lineage sense, not into federal service) as a unit--almost two years after the 357th was relegated to history. The 121st itself did not survive into the 1960s--it was inactivated and disbanded, although its squadrons (the redesignated squadrons formerly assigned to the 357th) remained as part of OHANG, and each became the basis for the four existing wings now, along with the historical 112th Squadron. The 121st--the old 357th FG--no longer exists, and the 121st Air Refueling Wing is not related to it (it's a redesignation of the 55th Bomb Wing/Fighter Wing, another designation allocated to the OHANG). I realize it's convoluted, but it demonstrates that the connection between the USAAF unit and the OHANG is on paper (and in legacy) only. Thanx for the discussion.--Buckboard 11:22, 23 February 2008 (UTC)

new unit info box
I have recently noted a profusion of new info boxes in Air Guard articles. ALL are incorrect in denoting any federal links in the command structure. The guard is a state organization only. When their units deploy operationally, those units come under the federal chain of command for the period of time they are deployed, but the guard as a whole does not. The commander-in-chief of any state guard unit is the governor of the state. Thus, in this article, the commander in chief is the governor of Ohio. The POTUS and SECAF have no command authority over the OHANG. This is not just bantering of words. Federal law prohibits the deployment in combat, for instance, of Guard aircraft purchased with funds designated for Homeland Security, or which have a support mission for FEMA. In such instances, the buck stops with the governor, period. I will not edit the article until a period for discussion has passed, but it is in error, and you can't rationalize the use of errors in an encyclopedia, an entity devoted to fact.--Reedmalloy (talk) 15:41, 6 August 2010 (UTC)
 * Scratch the above. The editor is a European perhaps unfamiliar with the workings of this portion of the U.S. military. Edit made for this article.--Reedmalloy (talk) 05:43, 8 August 2010 (UTC)