as activated March 1943 at , Washington, as one of the original squadrons of the . The initial  for the squadron was drawn from the  at Ephrata and the  at , South Dakota. The cadre soon departed for , Florida, where they conducted simulated combat missions with the  out of .

The ground echelon moved to , Washington, in May 1943 and to , Montana, in July. At Great Falls the first combat crews were assigned to the squadron. In the final stage of training the squadrons dispersed with the 614th training at .

After completing training the ground echelon left for overseas on 19 October 1943. After staging at , New York, they embarked on the  and sailed on 27 October disembarking at  on the  on 3 November 1943. The air echelon staged for deployment at , Illinois, then flew to England under the control of  via Newfoundland, Iceland and Scotland.