7499th Support Group
The 7499th Support Group is an inactive United States Air Force organization. Its last assignment was to United States Air Forces in Europe, being stationed at Wiesbaden Air Base, West Germany It was inactivated on 30 June 1974.
The 7499th participated in overt and covert reconnaissance throughout the European theater during the Cold War and reported directly to Headquarters USAFE. The unit was initially formed as a squadron in 1948, first at Furstenfeldbruck Air Base, Germany. By 1955, with the pending inactivation of the Air Resupply And Communications Service's 582d Air Resupply Group at RAF Molesworth, England, the unit was expanded to a group level and moved to Wiesbaden Air Base.
This mission was later performed by the 7575th Operations Group, which operated from Rhein-Main Air Base, West Germany from 1 July 1977 until its inactivation on 31 March 1991.
History
Origins
The unit's origins can be traced to 9 August 1946, when an Army Air Forces Douglas C-47 Skytrain departed Tulln Air Base near Vienna, Austria, on a scheduled courier run that would take it to Venice, Italy, then south to Rome. These flights were routine, and this aircraft had three passengers besides the crew and cargo. As the C-47 flew toward Venice, it encountered heavy weather, including an undercast, and, unknown to its crew, blundered into Yugoslav airspace for several minutes. Before long Yugoslav Yakovlev Yak-3 fighters shot the C-47 down. The pilot crash-landed and all the people aboard survived but were interned. This caused an immediate uproar from the US government, and stern statements were issued to Yugoslav prime minister Josip Broz about immediate release and access to the crash site. Talks were underway when, on 19 August, incredibly, almost the same exact event occurred again. Another C-47 courier aircraft was shot down by Yugoslav fighters in the same area. This time the crew was not so fortunate and all aboard perished.Under threat of US cutoff of aid to Yugoslavia, Tito yielded, the interned Americans were released, and some compensation paid to the next-of-kin of the dead personnel. Relative calm ensued between the US and Yugoslavia, but a question lingered in the minds of officials in USAFE Headquarters at Wiesbaden, Germany. How did those Yugoslav fighters, twice, find those C-47s in bad weather and shoot them down?
USAFE acquired a Boeing RB-17 Flying Fortress from a photo-mapping unit, Detachment A of the 10th Reconnaissance Group at Furth Air Base, Germany. These aircraft were in Europe as part of Project Casey Jones, an attempt to photomap as much of the world as possible to create maps and charts for use in future contingencies, and installed electronic countermeasures equipment in it. The B-17 was flown carefully along the border near where the C-47s had been shot down, making sure it did not infringe Yugoslav airspace. By luck, on the very first mission, the Yugoslavs cooperated and turned on their radar and began tracking it. The equipment picked up the familiar signals from a German Würzburg radar on about 560 MHz and took bearings, dozens of them, all of which cut at the same point. Where the bearings crossed there had been a German radar school during the war. Obviously the Yugoslavs had put into service one or more of the old German radars.
This mission was so successful that USAFE directed that further electronic "ferret" missions be flown along the border with the Soviet zones of Germany and Austria, as well as over the Baltic Sea, looking for Soviet radar stations. Over the next several years these aircraft detected a gradual Soviet radar buildup in their zones. During the Berlin Airlift 1948–49, the B-17s would fly occasional missions in the Berlin Air Corridors, using call signs making them appear as airlift Douglas C-54 Skymasters. They flew only at night and did not land at Tempelhof Central Airport, declaring emergencies with "landing gear problems" and thus exiting to the west without Soviet observers seeing them.
Thus began the electronic intelligence mission. Detachment A would go on to join a flight of the 45th Reconnaissance Squadron on 26 March 1947 and move to Furstenfeldbruck Air Base, Germany. Then came the Berlin Airlift, in June 1948. As part of the collection operation some C-47s and Douglas RB-26 Invaders were acquired and modified with cameras. They occasionally flew as part of the airlift stream, diligently collecting photography. A few B-17 ELINT flights were also made in the Berlin Air Corridors, but only at night.
7499th Support Squadron
Most likely because of the airlift and its accompanying sharp increase in tensions, USAFE decided to form the reconnaissance and ELINT units into a single squadron. United States Air Forces in Europe organized the 7499th Air Force Squadron Furstenfeldbruck on 14 October 1948.From Furstenfeldbruck, the 7499th continued to fly frequent missions in the Berlin Air Corridors. As the Soviets modernized their units and increased their presence, it was vital to gain as much information on them as possible. For better management of this covert outfit as well as to bring it closer to the major USAFE photo and ELINT interpretation centers, the 7499th moved in August 1950 to Wiesbaden Air Base, within a few miles of USAFE Headquarters.
Beginning in 1950, the unit upgraded to C-54 Skymasters to do both photographic reconnaissance and ELINT work, replacing the B-17s. The C-54 boasted better collection capability, and had the additional advantage of actually being a transport, thus attracting much less attention. C-47s also replaced the RB-26s, the C-47s also being less visible to the Soviets than the Invader bomber overflying East Germany.
7499th Support Group
In 1955, in response to increasing collection requirements and the pending inactivation of the Military Air Transport Service intelligence units, USAFE upgraded its reconnaissance effort, eexpanding the squadron as the 7499th Support Group at Wiesbaden with three squadrons.7405th Support Squadron
The 7405th Support Squadron became the flying element of the upgraded group, remaining at Wiesbaden as the only unit to conduct corridor collection. The 7405th was openly tasked with the courier mission to West Berlin, meaning it was to conduct daily flights to and from Tempelhof Central Airport carrying passengers and priority cargo. It was known as the "Berlin for Lunch Bunch". Under this cover the newer aircraft were to continue their collection using better sensors, including the first infrared imagery sensors. Its C-47s and RB-26s soldiered on into the late 1950s, and some C-54s until 1963. In 1959 the C-47s were supplanted by four Convair T-29s, navigation trainers converted for courier work and vertical photography, but another generation was about to arrive.A new aircraft, a specially modified Boeing Boeing EC-97G Stratofreighter, made its appearance in 1953. This aircraft, covertly carrying a 240-inch focal length camera, was codenamed Pie Face and was mostly used along the periphery of the satellite nations. This camera, with a 20-foot focal length, was developed by Boston University and was installed initially in a Convair RB-36 Peacemaker. However, it was later decided that because an overflight though the Berlin Air Corridors to Tempelhof by an RB-36 would probably be too provocative, it would be better if a transport aircraft was equipped with this huge camera. The work to remove the camera from the RB-36 and install it in the C-97 was conducted in a secure hangar at Convair at Air Force Plant No. 4, Carswell Air Force Base, Texas. The camera took 18 x 36-inch negatives exposed at 0.0025 seconds and could be positioned to take vertical or left or right oblique photographs through a large window which was hidden by covert doors.
When flown on an occasional Berlin Air Corridor mission, even at the required altitudes of less than 10,000 ft, the camera would produce spectacular, high-resolution photography, very useful for technical analysis of equipment. This aircraft would provide valuable imagery right up until 1972, when it was finally retired to AMARC after some productive missions around Cuba during the Cuban Missile Crisis.
Additional Boeing EC-97Gs that arrived in 1963 were ostensibly cargo carriers, but fitted with ELINT gear and, in one case, with oblique cameras. Aircraft 52-2686 and 52-2639 were equipped with multiple ELINT work stations in the upper, cargo section of the fuselage. Aircraft 52-2688 was equipped with cameras only. Aircraft 52-2687 was equipped with smaller, single work stations, one for ELINT and one for cameras on the lower deck of the double fuselage, leaving the upper deck normal in appearance and capable of carrying cargo. These aircraft were designed to gather high-quality technical data on the then-new Soviet SA-2 Guideline Surface-to-air missile system, which by the mid-1960s had spread throughout the Warsaw Pact countries, especially in East Germany, and was downing US aircraft over North Vietnam. This platform was especially valuable for providing data enabling the US to design appropriate electronic countermeasures against the SA-2. The north and south Berlin Air Corridors were unique places for this collection, since several Soviet SA-2 sites were located directly within corridor limits. When the SA-2 was superseded by more advanced missile systems, the aircraft was reconfigured to collect on them.
7406th Support Squadron
The 7406th Support Squadron was activated at Rhein-Main Air Base, West Germany on 10 May 1955 and received its first aircraft in March 1956. The mission of the 7406th was airborne reconnaissance. It owned and maintained the aircraft and provided the flight crews. A separate USAF Security Service squadron provided the crew that manned the intelligence collection positions on the aircraft.The RB-50s were replaced with specially configured Lockheed C-130A Hercules reconnaissance aircraft in 1958. The first Hercules, 56-0484 was assigned in March 1958. Other C-130A-II aircraft assigned to the 7406th included in order of assignment from July to October 1958: 56–0525, 56–0528, 56–0530, 56–0534, 56–0538,56–0541, 56–0535 and 56-0540.
Under the Big Safari program of special procurement, E-Systems converted ten C-130A aircraft for signals intelligence duties under project Sun Valley. These C-130s replaced the RB-50Es which were modified as RB-50Gs and transferred to the Pacific.
One of these C-130s ) was shot down with the loss of a crew of seventeen over Soviet Armenia on 2 September 1958, becoming the first C-130 lost to hostile fire. Four Soviet MiG-17 pilots took turns firing on the unarmed C-130 when the American aircraft inadvertently penetrated Soviet airspace while on a recon mission along the Turkish-Armenian border. The C-130 had flown fewer than 200 hours when it was shot down. On 2 Sep 1997, the National Security Agency dedicated at National Vigilance Park, Fort Meade, Maryland an Aerial Reconnaissance Memorial consisting of a refurbished C-130A restored to look identical to C-130A 60-528 when it was shot down. The Aerial Reconnaissance Memorial honors all Silent Warriors who paid the ultimate price while defending their country.
7499th crews operated temporarily out of MacDill Air Force Base, Florida in the 1960s. At first it was attached to the 15th Tactical Fighter Wing, then in Feb 1966 the 4409th Support Squadron was organized. The mission area was the north coast of Cuba with a coordinated Lockheed U-2 Dragon Lady mission. At first 7406th flight crews, on temporary duty, trained Tactical Air Command 4409th Squadron flight crews until more 7406th Squadron personnel transferred to the 4409th.
Lockheed C-130B-II Hercules aircraft that had previously been assigned at Yokota Air Base, Japan from 1961 to 1971 were sent to the 7406th at Rhein-Main AB in 1971, replacing the C-130A-II models that were converted to original cargo configuration and assigned to Air National Guard units in the United States.
The 7406th continued flying reconnaissance missions from Rhein-Main in the C-130B models until 30 June 1973 when the squadron's sister USAFSS squadron moved to Hellenikon Air Base, Greece as Detachment 1, 7499th Support Group. This was just south of Athens. Uniforms were not permitted off base. 7406th operations remained at Rhein-Main but it flew operational missions out of Hellenikon from 1 July 1973 until its last C-130B-II mission was flown on 13 June 1974. The unit was flying only Mediterranean missions by this time. The 7406th was inactivated on 30 June 1974. After inactivation of the 7406th Squadron the 55th Strategic Reconnaissance Wing at Offutt Air Force Base, Nebraska took over the missions with Boeing RC-135 aircraft.