Included were many enlisted aviation students who left basic combat training after having their first solo-flight and were given the opportunity to become liaison pilots.
Flight training consisted of about 60 hours of flying time and stressed such procedures as short field landings and takeoffs over obstacles, low altitude navigation, first aid, day and night reconnaissance, aerial photography, and aircraft maintenance.
Unarmed—except perhaps for a .45 pistol or .30 carbine—these men in 28 different squadrons flew low and slow with wheels, skis, or floats.
[1] During the campaign to recapture the Philippines, pilots of the 25th Liaison Squadron flew a dozen Stinson L-5 Sentinel aircraft in short 30-minute flights (December 10–25, 1944) delivering supplies (including a 300-bed hospital) to the 6,000 men of the 11th Airborne Division isolated in the mountains of Leyte.
In the northwestern U.S., some liaison pilots flew forest patrols (Project Firefly) watching for fires ignited by incendiary bombs carried across the Pacific beneath unmanned Japanese high altitude balloons.