The current mission statement of the 99th Reconnaissance Squadron is "To deploy and employ warrior Airmen and execute effective and sustained U-2 operations globally in support of National Objectives."

Organized at Kelly Field, Texas, on 21 August 1917, the 99th Aero Squadron moved to Garden City, New York, in early November and sailed for France on the fourteenth.

Die sector during which time one flight of unit, operating in Vosges region of Alsace and Lorraine where it participated in combat with French XXXIII Corps.

However lack of funding for training and the general feeling in the United States that the peace lessened the need for a strong military led to many of the combat veterans to leave the service.

On 9 November 1928, it was reactivated at Mitchell Field, New York, and was equipped with a series of observation aircraft, and performed operational testing on the planes, and various variants over the next several years.

On 27 February 1941, one of its B-18As, piloted by 1st Lieutenant Jack L. Schoch and with six other crew members aboard, crashed into Panama Bay just off Venado Beach, with the loss of all on board.

With its remaining four B-18As, the unit continued its intensive training program from its base at Rio Hato until, on 25 August 1941, it received one of the new Boeing B-17B Flying Fortresses assigned to the Command.

[6] Just before the Pearl Harbor Attack, on 3 December, the Squadron was ordered to distant Zandrey Field, Dutch Guiana (by way of Piarco Airport, Trinidad), under an agreement with the Netherlands government-in-exile, by which the United States occupied the colony to protect bauxite mines.

[6] The intensive flying of the first two months of the war soon took its toll, however, and by the end of February 1942, the squadron was forced to report that it had but three B-18A's operational at Zandery and that " .... none of them are airworthy at this time."

[6] At the AAFSAT, the squadron trained units at various airfields in central and northern Florida, the squadron trained cadres for 44 bomb groups in organization and operations, performed bombing pattern tests, experimented with 3-plane formations to attack moving ships, and performed over a hundred equipment tests.

[6] On 3 March 1944, the squadron was again moved without personnel or equipment to Dalhart Army Air Field, Texas, where the 99th was assigned to the 313th Bombardment Wing, with a mission to organize and train for Boeing B-29 Superfortress operations in the Western Pacific.

Arriving at Tinian on 28 December 1944, the 99th Bombardment Squadron, Very Heavy flew its first bombing raids on 27, 29 and 31 January 1945, against Japanese installations in the northern Marianas.

For the remaining months of the war, squadron B-29s repeatedly struck Japanese aircraft factories, chemical plants, naval bases and airdromes.

The squadron won the second award in mine-laying operations beginning in mid May 1944 in the Shimonoseki Straits, which controlled access to the Inland Seas.

This operation crippled Japan's efforts to ship food, raw materials, war supplies, troops, and combat equipment to and from the homeland.

With the end of World War II, the squadron moved to Harmon Air Force Base, Guam on 17 March 1946 and inactivated there on 20 October 1948.

The 99th continued to fly B-29s at Travic until 1 May 1953, when SAC moved the wing and its squadrons to Mountain Home Air Force Base, Idaho.

In November 1955 the 99th and other wing squadrons demonstrated SAC's ability to strike anywhere in the world making several deployments to England and Guam.

[4] During Operation Desert Shield, 99th Squadron pilots immediately deployed to Saudi Arabia and flew their first missions of 19 August 1990, just 17 days after Iraq invaded Kuwait.

Throughout Desert Shield/Storm, squadron pilots provided vital reconnaissance that kept coalition commanders informed on the positions and movement of Iraqi troops.