7499th Group Reunions

Cold War Warriors throughout the European Theater
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 7499th Group Reunions
   This is a site published by and for the members and friends of the historic 7499th Squadron, 7499th Group, 7405th Squadron, 7406th Squadron, 7407th Squadron, 7575th Group and 7580th Squadron.  These units of the United States Air Forces Europe participated in overt and covert reconnaissance throughout the European theater during the Cold War from 1946 to 1990.  We meet to review and update our history and experiences.

Cold War Warriors' Last Flight

From our meager archives, lists from earlier reunions (e.g., 2001 in DC) and information from you, we have compiled a roster of those who have died since serving in USAFE and one of our units. Please click on the "Final Flights" listing to the left and see if you can fill in the blanks or provide additional news of these special crew members.


USAFE's Cold War Recce 2011 Reunion, 23-25 Sep 2011, Fairborn, Ohio, a Success


The Berlin For Lunch Bunch (the 7405th/7580th people 1976-1990 - lead by Mike Hushion and Gene Trosterud) hosted the 2011 USAFE Berlin For Lunch Bunch Reunion (all ex-USAFE recce personnel, 1946-1990) from 23-25 September, at the [Dayton] Fairborn/Beavercreek Holiday Inn (same location as the 2008 and 2009 reunion). A great time was had by all of the 56 attendees.


Activities began Saturday with an exceptional buffet breakfast from 8 to 1030.  Slightly overlapping, our unit historian, John Bessette, briefed us on our detailed history from 1946 to 1990 including aircraft from the B-17 and B-50 through the F-100, B-57, C-54, C-118, B-26, C-47, L-20, RB-46, CT-29, C-97, C-7 and finally the C-130.  We overtly and covertly collected and reported PHOTINT, IR, ELINT and COMINT individually and, finally, integrated and coordinated.  There were Air Medals for individuals and Outstanding Unit Awards.  The audience chimed in with their additions and details that lasted for a full and rewarding two hours.

Many of the reunion crowd then drove to the National Museum of the United States Air Force to see the internal and external exhibits and the adjacent World War I Dawn Patrol Rendezvous.  This was a bi-annual, magnificent display of uniformed WWI enthusiasts/re-enactors and their flying rebuilt and replica WWI-era mono- and bi-planes, and period automobiles.

Then began the arranged bus service to/from the hotel to the Dayton Art Institute's Oktoberfest with its numerous food stalls (from German bratwurst to Chinese noodles) and both oom-pa and rock bands.  (The Dayton Art Museum was also available for a walk through of their remarkable and most representative exhibits.) 

That night, John Bessette presented a briefing newly obtained from British Medmenham Collection.  This group is our British counterparts who flew covert aircraft intelligence collection in the Berlin Corridors and Berlin Circle between 1945 and 1990. The brief included facinating imagery from that era that highlighted the use that the British government made of the exceptional collected intelligence.  

  

 
The reunion concluded with a final breakfast on Sunday morning.  Best of all, Gene Trosterud who is retiring from the Air Force as a Chief Master Sargent in Feb 2012, offered to host the next reunion in 2013 somewhere in the Western US (Albuquerque?  San Diego?).  Plan ahead and plan to come.  It's worth your time.
      
History: 7499th B-17 Still Exists

The May 2010 issue of the British aviation magazine FlyPast brought the news that a B-17, which had been flying at airshows all over Europe for many years, was being grounded, at least temporarily.  The B-17 in question, serial number 44-8846, has been lovingly cared for by a French association called “Forteresse Toujours Volante” (Fortress Forever Flying), but insurance and maintenance considerations mean that the aircraft must be grounded, at least temporarily.

 

                                      B-17, formally from the 7499th, repainted in WWII colors. (Photo by Roger Soupart, FlyPast Magazine)


How does this relate to the 7499th's history?  Simple: this B-17 was once a photo collector with the 7499th Squadron, from 1947 until 1953.  It is one of only two aircraft that have flown for the 7499th and its successor units that still exist.  More about the other bird, also a B-17, later in this article.


44-8846 came to England in early 1945, and actually flew six bombing missions with the 351st Bomb Group against Nazi Germany before VE Day in May.  It was then one of several B-17s modified for photo-mapping work and assigned to Project Casey Jones, a combined British-American effort to accurately map as much of Europe and Africa as possible.  In that role it flew missions ranging from northern Europe to Liberia in Africa.

 

By 1947, as the Soviets were growing more hostile, USAFE realized it needed a long-range photo and ELINT collection capability (see article on this website about getting ELINT capability beginning 1946).  It acquired several B-17s, including 8846, and assigned them to the 45th Reconnaissance Squadron at Furstenfeldbruck, near Munich.  In November 1948 the 7499th Squadron was formed at “Fursty” to perform these covert reconnaissance missions, and 8846 was assigned in March 1949.  From then until March 1953 8846 and its sister B-17s flew numerous missions along the borders with the Soviet Zones of Germany and Austria, as well as into the Baltic and Adriatic seas.  It also flew some missions in the corridors to Berlin, augmenting the 7499ths RB-26s and C-47s in that lucrative environment.


                                                                              B-17 4-8889 flying for the 7499th (photo by Bob Brewer)


But by 1953 the B-17s were being replaced by better-equipped Douglas C-54 transports, also configured with special photo and ELINT equipment.  So 8846 flew back to the US in February, and was probably destined for the scrapyard.  But then the French photo-mapping agency, the Institut Geographique Nationale (IGN), came looking for aircraft to fits its needs.  Lo and behold, 8846 and others, already configured for photography, fit the bill, and 8846 returned to Europe under the IGN.  From December 1954 until early 1985 these B-17s flew photo-mapping missions throughout the world.


In 1985, as the IGN replaced its B-17s with more modern aircraft, a French group of aviation enthusiasts formed the “Forteresse Toujours Volante” to keep a B-17 flying.  They picked 8846 and refurbished her to look like a wartime US Eighth Air Force B-17.  It was so successful at this that it was one of the B-17s chosen to appear in the 1989 movie Memphis Belle.  You can see it portraying several different B-17s in that classic.  From then on, through the 2009 airshow season in Europe, one could see 8846 performing in US markings, to remind one and all of our role in the liberation of Europe.  But, as of March 2010, it has been grounded.  The association has a special hangar for 8846 at La Ferte Alais Airfield in France, and will have it on display there.  And maybe it will take to the skies again!


There is one more 7499th RB-17 still existing, 44-8889.  This aircraft was being ready for combat in England when VE Day came along, and went into storage.  By April 1949 it had been converted to be an ELINT collector and had joined the 7499th.  Like 8846, it roamed the Iron Curtain from the Baltic to the Adriatic, this time collecting on the growing Soviet air defense radar capability.  Its time with the 7499th cane to an end in September 1953, when it too went back to the States.  It also was rescued by the French IGN, and, converted to photomapping, flew countless missions.  In 1976 it left IGN and became part of the collection at the French national Aviation Museum (“Musee de l’Air”) at Le Bourget Airport near Paris.  It was on display in US Eighth Air Force markings until at least 2004, but since has been placed in storage there.  We hope that it will again emerge to be seen.


Thus the tale of the only two known surviving aircraft from the 7499th Squadron and its successor units.  Interestingly, they are among the very oldest.  Only one other aircraft from the 7499th Group is known to exist.  This is the Martin RB-57A 52-1492, “Sharp Cut,” from the 7407th Support Squadron at Rhein-Main 1955 and beyond.  This now resides at the museum at Hill AF Base, Utah.  If you are in the area, check it out!



                                                                                RB-57 from the 7407th Sq now at Hill AFB


                                                                                                 Written for FlyPast Magazine by John Bessette, 7499th Historian (6 Aug 2010)