The B-52 carries a crew member whose only job is to fight an invisible war

The B-52 Stratofortress carries a crew of five: an aircraft commander, a co-pilot, a navigator, a radar navigator, and an electronic warfare officer. The first four have roles that are immediately understandable — flying the aircraft, navigating to the target, and managing weapons delivery. The fifth crew member, the Electronic Warfare Officer, or EWO, does something altogether different. The EWO fights a war that is invisible to the naked eye, waged entirely in the electromagnetic spectrum.

What The EWO Actually Does

The EWO's station is on the upper flight deck of the B-52, surrounded by displays and control panels connected to the aircraft's suite of electronic warfare systems. The EWO's primary job is to monitor the electromagnetic environment around the aircraft — detecting, identifying, and prioritising every radar signal, missile guidance beam, and electronic emission that could represent a threat. When a surface-to-air missile system locks onto the B-52, the EWO is the crew member who sees it first — not as a visual object, but as an electronic signal on a screen. When enemy fighters activate their targeting radars, the EWO identifies the type, direction, and urgency of the threat and advises the pilots on how to respond.

Jamming, Chaff, And Flares

The B-52H carries a complex suite of active and passive electronic countermeasures under the EWO's control. Active jamming systems — including the AN/ALQ-155 Power Management System, AN/ALQ-117, and AN/ALQ-172 — transmit electronic signals designed to confuse, overwhelm, or deceive enemy radars, making it harder for missiles and fire-control systems to track the bomber accurately. For passive defence, the EWO commands the AN/ALE-24 chaff dispensing system, which releases clouds of metallic strips that reflect radar waves and create false targets, and the AN/ALE-20 flare system, which deploys heat-emitting decoys to draw infrared-guided missiles away from the aircraft's engines.

Steering Through The Electromagnetic Spectrum

Veteran EWOs have described their role as steering the aircraft through the hostile electromagnetic spectrum. While the pilots physically fly the bomber through airspace, the EWO is simultaneously navigating through an invisible landscape of radar beams, missile guidance frequencies, and communications signals — deciding which threats to jam, which to evade, and which to prioritise in real time. During Operation Linebacker II over Hanoi in December 1972, EWOs aboard B-52s were operating their countermeasures against one of the densest surface-to-air missile environments in history, with approximately 1,240 SAMs fired at the bomber formations over 11 nights. The effectiveness of the EWOs' work was a significant factor in the overall loss rate remaining below two per cent.

A Role That Has Only Grown More Important

In the decades since Vietnam, the electromagnetic battlespace has become dramatically more complex. Modern integrated air defence systems operate across multiple frequency bands, use advanced electronic counter-countermeasures to defeat jamming, and can network multiple radar sites to track targets collaboratively. The B-52J upgrade programme includes significant modernisation of the aircraft's electronic warfare systems — equipping the EWO with newer, more capable tools to operate in this environment. The EWO remains the only crew member on the B-52 whose entire job is defence — not flying, not navigating, not attacking, but keeping the aircraft and its crew alive against threats they cannot see with their eyes.