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Operation Christmas Drop, cheer from above

  • Published
  • By Senior Airman Carlin Leslie
  • 36th Wing Public Affairs
Operation Christmas Drop 2011 got underway here, Dec. 12, with the help of 374th Airlift Wing from Yokota Air Base, Japan. OCD is a private organization that collects goods to distribute to more than 50 Micronesian Islands every year at this time. The flights serve as a training mission for the United States Air Force and the tradition dates back to the first Operation Christmas Drop. In 1952 aircrew of a WB-29 aircraft assigned to the 54th Weather Reconnaissance Squadron, formerly assigned to Andersen Air Force Base, Guam, were flying a mission south of Guam over the Micronesian island of Kapingamarangi. The aircrew saw some islanders waving to them,and the crew quickly gathered items they had on the plane, placed them in a container with a parachute attached and dropped the cargo as they circled back. Thus starting the longest running humanitarian mission in the Air Force.