No. 541 Squadron RAF was a

Royal Air Force The Royal Air Force (RAF) is the United Kingdom's air and space force. It was formed towards the end of the First World War on 1 April 1918, becoming the first independent air force in the world, by regrouping the Royal Flying Corps (RFC) and ...

Squadron formed as a photographic

reconnaissance In military operations, reconnaissance or scouting is the exploration of an area by military forces to obtain information about enemy forces, terrain, and other activities. Examples of reconnaissance include patrolling by troops (skirmisher ...

squadron in

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

History

Formation in World War II

The squadron formed at

RAF Benson Royal Air Force Benson or RAF Benson is a Royal Air Force (RAF) station located at Benson, near Wallingford, in South Oxfordshire, England. It is a front-line station and home to the RAF's fleet of Westland Puma HC2 support helicopters, use ...

on 19 October 1942 from 'B' and 'F' flights of No. 1 PRU, and was equipped with

Spitfires The Supermarine Spitfire is a British single-seat fighter aircraft used by the Royal Air Force and other Allied countries before, during, and after World War II. Many variants of the Spitfire were built, from the Mk 1 to the Rolls-Royce Griff ...

to fly missions over Europe. It also received

Mustang The mustang is a free-roaming horse of the Western United States, descended from horses brought to the Americas by the Spanish. Mustangs are often referred to as wild horses, but because they are descended from once-domesticated animals, they ...

aircraft in July 1944 and operated some Lancaster bombers for UK mapping purposes after hostilities ceased. One of the squadrons first commanders following its formation was John Saffery. Wartime detachments operated from Gibraltar in 1943, providing imagery of North Africa, and from RAF Leuchars in the same year with missions flown into Norway looking for the battleship Scharnhorst. It disbanded in October 1946, with the Lancaster Flight becoming No. 82 Squadron.

Postwar

The squadron reformed at RAF Benson on 1 November 1947, and in December 1950 its Spitfires were replaced with

Meteors A meteoroid () is a small rocky or metallic body in outer space. Meteoroids are defined as objects significantly smaller than asteroids, ranging in size from grains to objects up to a meter wide. Objects smaller than this are classified as mic ...

which it operated from

RAF Bückeburg The Royal Air Force (RAF) is the United Kingdom's air and space force. It was formed towards the end of the First World War on 1 April 1918, becoming the first independent air force in the world, by regrouping the Royal Flying Corps (RFC) and ...

RAF Laarbruch Royal Air Force , more commonly known as RAF ICAO EDUL (from 1 January 1995 ETUL) was a Royal Air Force station, a military airfield, located in Germany on its border with the Netherlands. The Station's motto was (). The site now operates a ...

and

RAF Gütersloh Royal Air Force Gütersloh, more commonly known as RAF Gütersloh, was a Royal Air Force Germany military airfield, the nearest Royal Air Force airfield to the East/West German border, in the vicinity of the town of Gütersloh. It was const ...

before it disbanded again on 7 September 1957.

Aircraft operated

References

Sources

* *

External links

History of No.'s 541–598 Squadrons at RAF Webbadge on RAF Heraldry Trust website
{{Royal Air Force Aircraft squadrons of the Royal Air Force in World War II

541 __NOTOC__ Year 541 (Roman numerals, DXLI) was a common year starting on Tuesday of the Julian calendar. In the Roman Empire, it was known as the Year of the Consulship of Anicius Faustus Albinus Basilius, Basilius without colleague (or, less ...

Reconnaissance units and formations of the Royal Air Force Military units and formations established in 1942