Official USAF 17th Attack Squadron Heritage Patch — U.S. Air Force MQ-9 Reaper Remotely Piloted Aircraft Embroidered Patch From unarmed Lightnings over Guadalcanal to Reapers over the Hindu Kush, the 17th has been watching the enemy for over eighty years. Nowhere to run. Nowhere to hide. The 17th Attack Squadron (17 ATKS) was constituted as the 17th Photographic Reconnaissance Squadron on July 14, 1942, and activated nine days later at Colorado Springs Army Air Base, Colorado. Equipped with Lockheed P-38/F-5 Lightning reconnaissance aircraft and B-25 Mitchells, the squadron trained under Second Air Force before deploying to the South Pacific and assignment to the Thirteenth Air Force. From a base camp at Noumea, New Caledonia, the 17th moved forward to Henderson Field on Guadalcanal in January 1943 and began flying hazardous unarmed photo-reconnaissance missions deep over enemy-held territory — mapping Japanese positions across Guadalcanal, New Guinea, the Northern Solomon Islands, the Bismarck Archipelago, Bougainville, Leyte, Luzon, the Southern Philippines, and as far as Central Burma and Southeast China. Operating detachments out of Munda on New Georgia, Buka Airfield on Bougainville, Noemfoor, Sansapor, Morotai, and Dulag on Leyte, the squadron provided the aerial intelligence that guided Allied operations across the Pacific until the war's end, when it was inactivated in the Philippines in April 1946. The 17th was reactivated at Shaw Air Force Base, South Carolina, in April 1951 as the 17th Tactical Reconnaissance Squadron, Photo-Jet, and equipped with a succession of Cold War reconnaissance platforms — the RF-80 Shooting Star, RF-84 Thunderflash, and RF-101C Voodoo. In 1959, the squadron deployed to NATO with the 66th Tactical Reconnaissance Wing at Laon Air Base, France, flying Voodoos along the Iron Curtain. After relocating to RAF Upper Heyford, England, in 1966, the 17th moved again to Zweibrücken Air Base, West Germany, in 1970 and re-equipped with the RF-4C Phantom II, conducting tactical reconnaissance across the European theater until inactivation on January 1, 1979. More than two decades later, on March 8, 2002, the squadron was reborn at Indian Springs Air Force Auxiliary Field — now Creech Air Force Base, Nevada — as the 17th Reconnaissance Squadron, flying the MQ-1 Predator remotely piloted aircraft in direct support of the Global War on Terror. The squadron added the larger, more lethal MQ-9 Reaper in 2006 and was redesignated the 17th Attack Squadron on May 15, 2016. Assigned to the 432nd Wing — the Air Force's first wing dedicated to unmanned aircraft systems — the 17th ATKS conducts intelligence, surveillance, reconnaissance, and precision strike operations worldwide from Creech AFB, providing combatant commanders with persistent overwatch and deadly precision twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week. This heritage patch honors a lineage that spans from World War II photo-reconnaissance pioneers to today's remotely piloted aircraft warriors. Perfect For: 17th Attack Squadron pilots, sensor operators, and mission intelligence coordinators past and present, MQ-9 Reaper and MQ-1 Predator aircrew, 432nd Wing and 732nd Operations Group personnel, Creech Air Force Base veterans, RF-4C Phantom and RF-101 Voodoo reconnaissance alumni, and anyone who served with the 17th from the South Pacific to the Nevada desert.
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