The O-52 Owl (19 aircraft) were officially delivered to USSR with the Lend Lease program. Curtis O-52 were used for artillery spotting at the Karelian and Leningrad fronts, and was even flown with civilian registrations in the early 1950s.

To my knowledge there is practically nothing systematically written about the artillery spotting units (Korrektirovochnye Aviatsionnyje Eskadrilli or KAE, the meaning of which I think is self-explanatory) of the Red Air Force (as the operations were not necessarily glorious and heroic like those of fighters or bombers).

In the Finnish-Soviet Winter war 1939-40 there were apparently one or two KAEs per ground army (note: operationally the KAEs were not subordinated to the Air Force, but to the terrestrial army, which gave the tasks. The equipment consisted of SSS (U-2 modification), R-5 or R-z biplanes. A number of spotting aircraft were shot down, with some aviators taken prisoners, so some more details might be found if necessary.

During the GPW 1941-45 separate Air Armies were formed starting in end-1942. Similarly each Air Army had a few KAEs (usually now called OKAE – “O” for Detached KAE, to underline that the KAE was directly subordinated to the Air Army command).

There is a very good article about the use of O-52 in the Red AF in a Russian aviation historical journal. According to this article O-52s equipped following escadrilles (each escadrille had naturally a number of organizational/designation changes, but the main structure is as follows):

- 12 OKAE of 13th Air Army (Leningrad front)

- 42 OKAE of 7th Air Army (Karelian front)

- 13 OKAE of 3th Air Army (Kalinin front)

At the end of the war some escadrilles were expanded to regimental status, thus 12 OKAE became 203 OKRAP in July 1944 and 13 OKAE became 206 OKRAP (OKRAP = Detached Correction-Recce Air Regiment).

The article includes also a table of the missions of 12 OKAE for 1943, which gives an indication about the activity level and also of other aircraft used by this OKAE:

  ……………Jan  Feb Mar Apr May Jun  Jul  Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec

O-52        7       3      3    1      19    4    -     -      -      4     2    -       

Su-2         15     8    19    3      11   18  12    -      -    -       -    -

Il-2KR      -       -     -      -       -       1   58   35   35 12    10    12

Hurricane 16     -     -      -       -       -    -     -      -   -       -      -

Kittyhawk-     10  49      -        -      4   122  43   70   52   -      -

The Hurricanes and Kittyhawks were mainly used for escorting the spotting aircraft. As is clearly seen the few O-52s were soon practically phased out and replaced by specially equipped Il-2 Shturmovik aircraft (modification Il-2KR).