67TH TACTICAL RECON GROUP

Chapter 9

this point its training was incomplete, and it didn’t begin operations until December 1943. By then it had been transferred from the 8th Air Force to the new 9th Air Force, which was to provide tactical support for the American army in Europe. When the group did begin operations it used a number of fast fighter types - the P-39 Airacobra, P-51 Mustang, and the F-5 version of the Lightning. It carried out a wide range of reconnaissance activities, ranging from artillery spotting close to the fighting, metrological flights, bomb damage assessment to support the strategic bombing campaign and the medium bombers near the front, and photographic reconnaissance and visual reconnaissance to directly support fighting units. The group was awarded a Distinguished Unit Citation for its role in the preparation for the D-Day landings. Between February 15 and March 20, 1944, it carried out a series of dangerous low altitude flights along the French coast, building up a picture of the coastline and the German defenses. It eventually photographed 160 miles of coastline and two inland strips each 120 miles long.

During the Normandy campaign, the group mainly supported the U.S. First Army, flying a mix of shorter range weather flights and visual reconnaissance in support of the fighting and photo reconnaissance. It was also used to direct the fire of the powerful naval guns lurking just off the coast, helping to dispel a belief that fast fighters would be unable to correct artillery fire. The group began to move to France as early as June 1944, with the first Squadron already in Normandy by the end of the month and the entire group across by July 31.

In September - December 1944, the group supported the attack on the German Siegfried Line (the West Wall). In December 1944 - January 1945, it took part in the Battle of the Bulge. In the period before the German attack, the group was the main reconnaissance unit for General Hodge’s First U.S. Army. The group did spot some German movements before the battle, but a period of bad weather arrived on November 17. Over the next month, there were ten days on which no operations were possible, but in the same period the group flew 361 missions, of which 242 were judged to be successful. Increased German activity was noted, but the available information of a German buildup was misinterpreted and the attack still caught the Allies by surprise. The bad weather continued into January and the group was unable to fly for thirteen days during the month. It flew 451 sorties on the other eighteen days of the month, a mix of artillery spotting and visual and photographic reconnaissance.

From January - May 1945, the group supported the final advance into Germany. It was used to photograph the Roer River and the Rhine before the crossings of those rivers and to find German positions during the advance into Germany. The group returned to the United States in July - September 1945 and was inactivated on March 31, 1946.”

To further highlight the impact that the 67th Tactical Recon Group made in the Allied Forces winning the war against Germany, I stumbled across an article written by Audrey Lemick. She was the wife of one of the pilots of the 67th Tactical Recon Group, whose name was Sergeant Charles D. Lemick. He was not only a pilot, but an amateur photographer who recorded his wartime journey though Europe. Most soldiers were told that they were not allowed to photograph anything while in combat, but most soldiers didn’t always exactly follow that rule. Thanks to Sergeant Charles D. Lemick we have some amazing photos of the 67th Tactical Recon Group’s travels. Here is the article that Audrey Lemick wrote:

“When most people think of the U.S. Army Air Forces in World War II, the first image that usually comes to mind is that of the heavy bombers, the B-17s and B-24s, that ravaged targets in Europe and the B-29s that wreaked havoc on Japanese cities in the Pacific.

Second comes recognition of the fighter squadrons that dueled with enemy pilots to protect the aerial fleets of bombers or strafe targets on the groundtrains, truck convoys, and enemy positions.

Hardly any thought these days is given to the brave pilots who risked their lives taking aerial photographs so that the bombers could find their targets and later assess the effectiveness (or lack thereof) of the bombing.

Photo reconnaissance was a vital part of the Allied war effort, and the 30th Squadron, 67th Tactical Reconnaissance Group of Lt. Gen. Lewis Brereton’s England-based U.S. Ninth Air Force played a key role in aerial photo mapping, target selection, and documenting enemy troop concentrations