46th Reconnaissance Squadron
military unit
The 46th Expeditionary Reconnaissance Squadron is an active Central Command unit of the United States Air Force.
The squadron was first activated as the 719th Bombardment Squadron in May 1943. After training in the United States, the squadron deployed to the Mediterranean Theater of Operations, where it participated in the strategic bombing campaign against Germany. The squadron was awarded two Distinguished Unit Citations for its actions during the war. Following V-E Day, the 716th returned to the United States and was inactivated in June 1945.
The squadron was activated again in September and trained with Boeing B-29 Superfortresses. It was redesignated the 46th Reconnaissance Squadron two months later, becoming one of the first long range reconnaissance units in Strategic Air Command (SAC). In August 1946, the squadron deployed to Ladd Field, Alaska Territory, where it conducted long range aerial reconnaissance over the Arctic. The 46th squadron flew "Project Nanook" to assess the Soviet threat in the Arctic at the beginning of the Cold War. The unit developed the grid system of Navigation which made Arctic navigation routine.
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This entry incorporates text from “46th Reconnaissance Squadron” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.