32nd Intelligence Squadron

The 32d Intelligence Squadron is a unit of the United States Air Force 707th Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance Group located at Fort George G. Meade, Maryland.

The 32d Intelligence Squadron is a specialized organization that consists of teams of intelligence professionals who support global power and secure and maintain information superiority by conducting operations that support Air Force, joint, combined, and special operations in peacetime and in war.

It provides effective organization, control, technical guidance, training, support, products, and tasking for ongoing intelligence analysis and dissemination activities. Serves the Department of Defense and other customers as directed, providing the core capability assisting the National Security Agency mission, through around-the-clock operations in support of national and tactical objectives. Performs information operations through multiple sources for national, theater, and tactical customers.

The squadron was established in mid-1943 as a tactical reconnaissance and photographic mapping squadron. Initial squadron training was under the Third Air Force, before it was deployed to the Mediterranean Theater of Operations and became part of Fifteenth Air Force in southern Italy in August 1945.

The squadron's deployment was delayed by the sinking of the SS Paul Hamilton by German aircraft on 20 April 1944, in which 317 members of the unit were killed in a catastrophic explosion.

Equipped primarily with unarmed Lockheed F-5 Lightnings, the squadron flew hazardous long-range intelligence and photo-mapping missions over enemy-held Italy and Occupied Europe, to get pictures required for the aerial war against the Axis powers. Initially it flew most missions over enemy-occupied Italy, Corsica and Sardinia, later flying missions over the Balkans. After the German surrender in May 1945, the squadron's personnel were demobilized in Italy during the summer of 1945, and the squadron was inactivated as a paper unit in the United States during October.

In 1952 the squadron was reactivated as a North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) tactical reconnaissance unit to be based in France as a result of the United States Cold War military buildup in Europe. It was activated by the transfer of the equipment and personnel of the Alabama Air National Guard 157th Tactical Reconnaissance Squadron, which had been federalized and brought to active duty during the Korean War. It took over the Lockheed RF-80A Shooting Star aircraft of the ANG unit, and trained for daylight reconnaissance missions.

The squadron, however was stationed at Fürstenfeldbruck Air Base in West Germany due to the uncompleted facilities at Toul-Rosières Air Base. Weather conditions in Germany severely restricted the training operations of the assigned RF-80As. The squadron frequently deployed to Nouasseur Air Base, Morocco during the winter of 1952-53 where the photo conditions were excellent.