The group's predecessor World War II unit, the 319th Bombardment Group was the first Martin B-26 Marauder group in the Mediterranean Theater of Operations during the war. The group received two Distinguished Unit Citations during the war. In 1945, the group was re-equipped with the Douglas A-26 Invader and was deployed to Okinawa, where it flew combat missions over China as part of Seventh Air Force against Imperial Japanese forces until the war's end.