George William Goddard (June 15, 1889[1] – September 20, 1987) was a United States Air Force brigadier general and a pioneer in aerial photography.

[4] On December 14, 1917, Goddard enlisted in the Aviation Section of the U.S. Army Signal Corps and entered the aerial photography course at the School of Military Aeronautics at Cornell University.

[5] When the Armistice was declared, ending World War I, Goddard was transferred to Carlstrom Field, Arcadia, Florida, where he finally graduated from flying school and was rated a pilot in May 1919.

[2][6] At the personal urging of General Billy Mitchell, who was impressed with Goddard's camera experimentation, he was assigned to McCook Field, Ohio, as officer in charge of aerial photographic research.

[3] Before and during World War II, Goddard went to England on several occasions to learn British methods of reconnaissance and exchange technical information.

During these trips, he met with his counterpart in the Royal Air Force (RAF), Group Commander Frederick Laws, who had pioneered British aerial reconnaissance as early as 1913.

During World War II, Goddard promoted aerial reconnaissance, aided the Navy in use of the strip camera and color photography, and introduced the moving film magazine.

[10] At Wright Field, Goddard and his staff were preoccupied with preparing hitherto much-neglected reconnaissance aircraft types for the coming war.

It was exacerbated by Goddard's single-minded promotion of the continuously open-shutter strip-camera, which he revealed to the public in an extensive photo coverage in Life magazine.

He also successfully interested the RAF in the strip camera, which Roosevelt had initially refused because it required very low altitude flight for best results.

Kaye then fell in disfavor and was sent to India just short of his promotion to flag rank, and Goddard returned to the good graces of General Henry Arnold, the chief of the Air Force.

Goddard was able to seize much data and material, and persuaded many optical scientists to move to the West just before the Red Army replaced American troops, but he complained that the State Department had countermanded much of this effort and returned equipment to the Soviets.

[15] During the war period, Goddard (along with Roosevelt) continued to stridently advocate for a dedicated reconnaissance aircraft, as opposed to the use of modified types.

[2] During the early part of the Korean War in 1950, Goddard went to Korea to introduce this new system of night photography and the latest type strip camera, which has been highly successful in the low-altitude jet aircraft operations under adverse weather conditions.

[2] In May 1952, Goddard was transferred to headquarters of NATO's Allied Air Forces in Central Europe at Fontainebleau, France, for duty as director of reconnaissance, Operations Division.

[19] Goddard's autobiography, written with DeWitt S. Copp and published in 1969, is a piece of reconnaissance literature and an important and detailed source to the history of the field in the United States.