5th Reconnaissance Squadron
Following World War II, the National Security Act of 1947 established the U.S. Air Force as a sister service of the Army and Navy. The concurrent establishment of major commands within the Air Force brought wholesale realignments, including creating new wings with subordinate groups and squadrons. The Air Force established the 9th Strategic Reconnaissance Wing on 25 April 1949 and activated it on 1 May. The Air Force also activated and redesignated the 9th Bomb Group and its subordinate squadrons, making them the 9th Reconnaissance Group, and the 1st, 5th and 99th Reconnaissance Squadrons. The 5th Reconnaissance Squadron's new home was Fairfield-Suisan (later Travis) AFB, California. For the next 11 months, squadron crewmembers flew RB-29s on visual, photographic, electronic, and weather reconnaissance missions.
Aviation Section, U.S. Signal Corps
The Aviation Section, Signal Corps, was the aerial warfare service of the United States from 1914 to 1918, and a direct statutory ancestor of the United States Air Force. It absorbed and replaced the Aeronautical Division, Signal Corps, and conducted the activities of Army aviation until World War I, when its statutory responsibilities were suspended for the duration of the war. The Aviation Section organized the first squadrons of the aviation arm and conducted the first military operations by United States aviation on foreign soil.