Following V-E Day, the squadron returned to the United States and was inactivated at Sioux City Army Air Base, Iowa on 20 August 1945.

En route to the theater, on 20 April 1944, 154 members of the Squadron were lost when the Liberty ship SS Paul Hamilton was sunk by an aerial torpedo.

[3][11] The squadron entered combat in May 1944, and primarily flew long range strategic bombing missions against targets in Italy, France, Germany, Austria, Hungary, Romania, and Yugoslavia, bombing marshalling yards, oil refineries, airfields, heavy industry, and other strategic objectives, such as the Ploesti air raids on the Romanian oilfields.

The squadron was awarded a Distinguished Unit Citation for continuing an attack on an oil refinery near Vienna, Austria on 26 June 1944 despite heavy fighter opposition.

It also hit communications lines and other targets during March and April 1945 to support the advance of the British Eighth Army in northern Italy in Operation Grapeshot.