The last contingent of B-2 bomber pilots, maintainers, and support staff who deployed to Andersen AFB, Guam, over the last four months to help bolster Pacific region security are returning to their home base—and taking their bombers with them—at Whiteman AFB, Mo. Whiteman’s 509th Bomb Wing sent aircrews in two waves of two months each to let each of its two bomb squadrons get Pacific training time, while maintainers and other support personnel stayed the full four months. During the Pacific tour, the B-2s flew missions to Alaska and Australia.
Defense Secretary Lloyd J. Austin III chaired a China-focused military briefing Oct. 27, part of a biweekly series of briefings with senior military commanders about China’s growing threat in the wake of an orbital hypersonic weapon test that elicited public worries from the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs. “What we…