Air Transport Command, 1942-45 ... In 1942, shortly after the bombing of Pearl Harbor, and the United States’ entry into World War II, Russell Lee left the FSA/OWI and joined the Overseas Technical Unit of the Air Transport Command (ATC), where he received a captain’s commission. The Overseas Technical Unit was created to photograph the routes and airfields flown by the ATC. Frequently, American pilots flew into airspace completely unfamiliar to them, often while maintaining radio silence. Pilots and crew alike experienced difficulty in remembering details of long briefings prior to flight, so a unit of professional photographers was assembled to provide these pilots and their crew with images to aid in their meticulous briefings. A B-24 bomber specially modified for aerial photography was assigned to the new unit; the nose of the plane was removed and replaced with high-grade glass to minimize any distortion of the film being shot through it. These modifications enabled the OTU to photograph airfields and landscapes as the pilots would see them. In 1944 Russell Lee was promoted to Major and in 1945 he was awarded the Air Medal. The Russell Lee Collection at the Wittliff Gallery contains a number of candid military photographs of Lee taken by his fellow ATC crew, as well as some of the photographs he shot for the ATC, including aerial and ground views of China and Egypt. The Collection also holds his ATC cap, Air Medal and his officer medals.
				Browse ... . ATC photographs by Russell Lee . Candid photographs taken of Russell Lee in the ATC