67TH TACTICAL RECON GROUP

Chapter 9

and fortifications.

The Squadron’s mission was to take still and motionpicture films of enemy positions, bomb-damage assessment photos following bombing raids, and included, as a 1943 Air Force booklet pointed out, “securing information necessary for planning the employment of a striking force.” The 67th Tactical Reconnaissance Group was awarded a Presidential Unit Citation for its most storied job of flying missions “at minimum altitudes along the Normandy invasion beaches immediately preceding Allied landings [on June 6, 1944].”

Eventually, the group’s converted P-38 (F-5) Lightning and P-51 Mustang (F-6) camera planes flew more than 5,000 missions, took over 2,200,000 photographs, operated over France, Belgium, and Germany, and were the first American planes to operate from bases east of the Rhine River. At war’s end, members of the squadron became witnesses to Nazi atrocities at the Buchenwald concentration camp outside Weimar, Germany.

Sergeant Charles D. Lemick of Gary, Indiana, an instrument repair specialist who performed maintenance on instruments carried by unarmed P-38 camera planes, served with the Squadron. An avid amateur photographer, Lemick recorded his wartime journeys through England, France, Belgium, and Germany. Although orders were issued prohibiting Gls from taking pictures in combat zones, that order was, luckily for historians, widely ignored. The result is a remarkably candid view of the war by amateur photographers.”

Attached are photos from Lemick including pictures of a downed fighter plane, a group picture of his Recon Group the 30th Squadron, pictures from the liberation of the Buchenwald concentration camp in Germany (which will be discussed later), and other amazing shots.

In my Google search regarding the 67th Tactical Recon Group, not only did I find the above mentioned information, but I also came across the breakdown of how the Recon Groups and Squadrons were