[1] The squadron assembled at its combat station, Grottaglie Airfield in Southern Italy, in early January 1944, from which it operated primarily on strategic bombing missions.

It attacked oil refineries, communications centers, aircraft factories and industrial facilities in Italy, Germany, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Romania, Albania and Greece.

The attacking group was heavily outnumbered by German interceptor aircraft, but not only succeeded in destroying its assigned target, but inflicted heavy losses on the defending fighters.

It attacked troop concentrations, bridges and viaducts during Operation Grapeshot, the Fifteenth Army Group offensive in Northern Italy in the spring of 1945.

Its Arctic stay was brief, and it returned to the United States and its new station at Rapid City Army Air Field, South Dakota in April 1947.

Under a plan implemented in February 1951 and finalized in June 1952, the squadron reported directly to the 28th Strategic Reconnaissance Wing and the intermediate group was eliminated.

SAC’s response was to break up its wings and scatter their aircraft over a larger number of bases, thus making it more difficult for the Soviet Union to knock out the entire fleet with a surprise first strike.

[1] Starting in 1960, one third of the squadron's aircraft were maintained on fifteen minute alert, fully fueled and ready for combat to reduce vulnerability to a Soviet missile strike.