BANGOR — The Bangor-based 101st Air Refueling Wing of the Maine Air National Guard is gearing up for an early 1996 deployment to Italy, where Maine guardsmen and their counterparts from New Jersey will play a role in restoring peace to war-torn Bosnia.

Working from an Italian base in Pisa, the members of the 101st will take their turn as the lead unit in an aircraft refueling mission which will support the North Atlantic Treaty Organization’s Operation Deny Flight. The NATO peace-keeping effort is aimed at keeping the Bosnian skies clear of air attacks by warring factions.

“This (the refueling operation) is an ongoing thing. This is our first time as the lead unit. We have been participants in the past,” 101st Wing Vice Commander Col. Edward Farwell said Wednesday.

Farwell said that a unit comprising five aircraft and nearly 150 guardsmen from Maine and New Jersey will be deployed to Pisa.

Maine will contribute the lion’s share of the human and equipment resources. Three airplanes and about 130 members of what Farwell termed a “five-aircraft package” will come from Maine.

The balance will be provided by the 108th Air Refueling of the New Jersey Air National Guard, which is stationed at McGuire Air Force Base.

A small advance team, consisting of about half a dozen guardsmen from Maine, will leave the United States shortly after Christmas. The rest of the unit will be deployed during the first week of January, and will remain in Italy for about a month.

Farwell said the 101st’s membership is about 1,000, about 260 of whom are full-time personnel. The wing commander is Brig. Gen. Wilfred Hessert.