 Groups assigned to the wing were the 461st and 484th Bombardment Groups, training at Hammer Field, California and Harvard Army Air Field, Nebraska.After the wing deployed to Bari, Italy in March 1944, a third group, the 451st Bombardment Group, was transferred to the wing from the 47th Bomb Wing.As part of Fifteenth Air Force the groups of the 49th attacked such targets as oil refineries, marshalling yards, aircraft factories, bridges, and airfields in Italy, Germany, Austria, and Bulgaria.