United States. Army Air Forces. Photo Reconnaissance Squadron, 3rd
Biography
The 3rd Photo Reconnaissance Squadron was activated on 10 June 1941 at Maxwell Field, Alabama. The unit underwent several redesignations between 1941 and 1944 before becoming the 3d Photographic Reconnaissance Squadron, Very Long Range (VLR), on 19 May 1944 at Smoky Hill Army Airfield, Kansas. The squadron's forward echelon deployed to Saipan in the Mariana Islands on 18 September 1944, flying under Twentieth Air Force in support of the B-29 bombing campaign against Japan. On 1 November 1944, the squadron flew the first American reconnaissance mission over Tokyo since the Doolittle Raid two and a half years earlier, in an aircraft nicknamed "Tokyo Rose." The squadron subsequently flew numerous single-sortie reconnaissance missions ahead of the first B-29 raid launched from Saipan on 24 November 1944, during which it lost two aircraft and their crews.