No. 467 Squadron RAAF was a

Royal Australian Air Force "Through Adversity to the Stars" , colours = , colours_label = , march = , mascot = , anniversaries = RAAF Anniversary Commemoration ...

bomber A bomber is a military combat aircraft designed to attack ground and naval targets by dropping air-to-ground weaponry (such as bombs), launching torpedoes, or deploying air-launched cruise missiles. The first use of bombs dropped from an air ...

squadron, active over North West Europe during World War II. Formed in November 1942 as an

Article XV Squadron Article XV squadrons were Australian, Canadian, and New Zealand air force squadrons formed from graduates of the British Commonwealth Air Training Plan (1939) during World War II. These units complemented another feature of the BCATP, under wh ...

in Britain, the squadron was notionally an Australian squadron under the command of the

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) an ...

, and consisted of a mixture of personnel from various

Commonwealth nations The Commonwealth of Nations, simply referred to as the Commonwealth, is a political association of 56 member states, the vast majority of which are former territories of the British Empire. The chief institutions of the organisation are the Co ...

. After becoming operational in early 1943, the squadron flew operations in Occupied Europe until the end of the war flying Avro Lancaster heavy bombers. It was scheduled to deploy to the

Far East The ''Far East'' was a European term to refer to the geographical regions that includes East and Southeast Asia as well as the Russian Far East to a lesser extent. South Asia is sometimes also included for economic and cultural reasons. The ter ...

to take part in further operations against Japan, but the war ended before it could complete its training and the squadron was disbanded in September 1945.

History

No. 467 Squadron was formed at

RAF Scampton Royal Air Force Scampton or RAF Scampton is a Royal Air Force station located adjacent to the A15 road near to the village of Scampton, Lincolnshire, and north-west of the city of Lincoln, England. RAF Scampton stands on the site of a Firs ...

, Lincolnshire, in the United Kingdom, under the

Empire Air Training Scheme The British Commonwealth Air Training Plan (BCATP), or Empire Air Training Scheme (EATS) often referred to as simply "The Plan", was a massive, joint military aircrew training program created by the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia and New Zea ...

(EATS) on 7 November 1942 and was equipped with Avro Lancaster

heavy bomber Heavy bombers are bomber aircraft capable of delivering the largest payload of air-to-ground weaponry (usually bombs) and longest range (takeoff to landing) of their era. Archetypal heavy bombers have therefore usually been among the larges ...

s. Under the terms of the EATS, the squadron was nominally a

Royal Australian Air Force "Through Adversity to the Stars" , colours = , colours_label = , march = , mascot = , anniversaries = RAAF Anniversary Commemoration ...

unit, but it was manned by a mixture of Commonwealth personnel, the majority being British originally, although as the war progressed more Australians were posted in. Soon after becoming operational the squadron moved to

RAF Bottesford Royal Air Force Bottesford or more simply RAF Bottesford is a former Royal Air Force station located on the Leicestershire-Lincolnshire county border, north west of Grantham, Lincolnshire and south of Newark-on-Trent, Nottinghamshire and about ...

, Leicestershire; it remained for a year before moving back to Lincolnshire, at

RAF Waddington Royal Air Force Waddington otherwise known as RAF Waddington is a Royal Air Force (RAF) station located beside the village of Waddington, south of Lincoln, Lincolnshire in England. The station is the RAF's Intelligence Surveillance Target ...

. The squadron formed part of No. 5 Group, RAF Bomber Command, and flew its first operation on 2 January 1943, laying mines off the French coast near Furze. Five days later, it undertook a bombing raid on Essen in Germany. It suffered its first combat loss in April 1943 during a bombing raid on Thieuloy L'Abbaye, and after this it conducted raids on Germany, France, Norway, Czechoslovakia, and Italy from until 1945. According to the RAAF Museum, during these raids the squadron gained a reputation for accurate bombing and was selected to attack the Dortmund-Ems Canal, an important and heavily defended German transport artery, on several occasions. Avro-lancaster-front

The squadron was initially formed with three

flights Flight is the process by which an object moves without direct support from a surface. Flight may also refer to: Arts, entertainment, and media Films * ''Flight'' (1929 film), an American adventure film * ''Flight'' (2009 film), a South Korean d ...

– designated 'A', 'B' and 'C' – although it was usual practice for Lancaster squadrons to consist of only two. In November 1943, No. 467 Squadron lost its third flight when it was used to raise No. 463 Squadron RAAF, another heavy bomber unit flying Lancasters. The squadron took part in several notable actions including the bombings of the Ruhr,

Berlin Berlin ( , ) is the capital and List of cities in Germany by population, largest city of Germany by both area and population. Its 3.7 million inhabitants make it the European Union's List of cities in the European Union by population within ci ...

, and

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. The squadron was also employed to attack targets around Peenemunde and other targets associated with the V1 and

V2 rocket The V-2 (german: Vergeltungswaffe 2, lit=Retaliation Weapon 2), with the technical name ''Aggregat 4'' (A-4), was the world’s first long-range guided ballistic missile. The missile, powered by a liquid-propellant rocket engine, was developed ...

s. It also supported the

Normandy landings The Normandy landings were the landing operations and associated airborne operations on Tuesday, 6 June 1944 of the Allies of World War II, Allied invasion of Normandy in Operation Overlord during World War II. Codenamed Operation Neptune and ...

and the subsequent Allied breakout in 1944, and

Operation Plunder Operation Plunder was a military operation to cross the Rhine on the night of 23 March 1945, launched by the 21st Army Group under Field Marshal Bernard Montgomery. The crossing of the river was at Rees, Wesel, and south of the river Li ...

, as the Allies crossed the

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and advanced into Germany the following year. To facilitate attacks deeper into Axis territory, in mid-1943 Bomber Command aircraft undertook several "shuttle service" raids, which involved aircraft departing England, attacking a target in Europe and then landing in

North Africa North Africa, or Northern Africa is a region encompassing the northern portion of the African continent. There is no singularly accepted scope for the region, and it is sometimes defined as stretching from the Atlantic shores of Mauritania in ...

where they would replenish before turning around and attacking another target and then return to England. No. 467 Squadron aircraft were the first to undertake such a raid, doing so on 20 June 1943, striking targets in Friederichshafen on the first leg and then

Spezia La Spezia (, or , ; in the local Spezzino dialect) is the capital city of the province of La Spezia and is located at the head of the Gulf of La Spezia in the southern part of the Liguria region of Italy. La Spezia is the second largest cit ...

on the return. The squadron's final operation before Germany capitulated came against an oil refinery at Vallo, in Norway, on the night of 25/26 April 1945. Following the end of the war in Europe, No. 467 Squadron's aircraft were used to transport liberated Allied prisoners of war to the United Kingdom. Later, in June, it moved to RAF Metheringham and was selected to form part of

Tiger Force Tiger Force was the name of a long-range reconnaissance patrol unit of the 1st Battalion (Airborne), 327th Infantry, 1st Brigade (Separate), 101st Airborne Division, which fought in the Vietnam War from November 1965 to November 1967. The unit ...

, which was being formed to operate against Japan from bases in

Okinawa is a prefecture of Japan. Okinawa Prefecture is the southernmost and westernmost prefecture of Japan, has a population of 1,457,162 (as of 2 February 2020) and a geographic area of 2,281 km2 (880 sq mi). Naha is the capital and largest city ...

. At this time, the squadron began training to convert its aircrew from Lancasters to B-24 Liberators. The war ended before the squadron deployed to Asia and it was disbanded in the United Kingdom at Metheringham on 30 September 1945. During the war, the squadron flew a total of 3,833 sorties, during which it lost 118 aircraft. A total of 760 aircrew from 467 Squadron were killed, of which 284 were Australians. No. 467 Squadron operated several famous Lancasters, amongst them LL843, survivor of 118 missions, and R5868, ''"S" for Sugar'', which flew 137 operational sorties, a total that was exceeded by only one other RAF Bomber (Lancaster ED888). After the war this aircraft was selected to be preserved and could be seen for several years at the entrance of the squadron's first base, RAF Scampton. It now resides at the

Royal Air Force Museum The Royal Air Force Museum is a museum dedicated to the Royal Air Force in the United Kingdom. The museum is a non-departmental public body of the Ministry of Defence and is a registered charity. The museum is split into two separate sites: * ...

at the site of the former Royal Air Force station

RAF Hendon Hendon is an urban area in the Borough of Barnet, North-West London northwest of Charing Cross. Hendon was an ancient manor and parish in the county of Middlesex and a former borough, the Municipal Borough of Hendon; it has been part of Grea ...

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, London. The front section of the fuselage of another of the squadron's Lancasters, PO-F (DV372), is on display at the Imperial War Museum in London. PO-F (DV372) flew 45 missions.

Aircraft operated

No. 467 Squadron operated the following aircraft:

Squadron bases

No. 467 Squadron operated from the following bases:

Commanding officers

No. 467 Squadron was commanded by the following officers:

History

Aircraft operated

Squadron bases

Commanding officers

See also