405 Maritime Patrol Squadron
|
No. 405 Maritime Patrol Squadron |
|
|---|---|
| Lineup | April 1941 to September 1945 April 1947 to the present day |
| Country |
 Canada
|
| Armed forces | Canadian Armed Forces |
| Armed forces | Royal Canadian Air Force |
| Type | Bomber squadron |
| Stationing locations |
CFB Greenwood Gransden Lodge Airfield |
| motto | Ducimus ("We lead") |
| Calls | Fortress Europe 1941–44 Ruhr 1941–45 Berlin 1941 German coast 1944 Normandy 1944 |
| Aircraft | |
| bomber | historical: Vickers Wellington , Handley Page Halifax , Avro Lancaster |
| patrol | historical: CP-127 (P2V7) Neptune , CP-107 Argus current: CP-140 Aurora |
|
Transport aircraft / helicopter |
historical: C-45 Expeditor |
The No. 405 Maritime Patrol Squadron (405th Maritime Reconnaissance Squadron ) is a unit of the Royal Canadian Air Force within the Canadian armed forces , which was named No. 405 Squadron RCAF was established.
history
Second World War
The squadron was formed on April 23, 1941 in Driffield , Yorkshire and equipped with Vickers-Wellington bombers. Ten weeks later, she flew the Royal Canadian Air Force's first bombing raid and bombed the rail yard at Schwerte . In April 1942 the Handley Page Halifax was switched to , with which No. 405 took part in Operation Millennium on the night of April 30th to 31st, 1942 , better known as the “ Thousand Bomber Attack ” on Cologne.
October 1942, the squadron was transferred to the Costal Command of the Royal Air Force . There it flew for anti-submarine patrol in the Bay of Biscay during Operation Torch .
The return to Bomber Command took place in early March 1943. There flew No. 405 for a while with No. 6 Bomber Group before moving to No. 8 (Pathfinder Force) Group , with which it served until the end of the war. In the last 20 months of the bomber offensive, the squadron received Avro Lancaster bombers .
The last flight of No. 405 Squadron RCAF was held on 25 April 1945, when nine Lancasters Hitler's country house at Obersalzberg bombed and four machine German gun batteries on Wangerooge attacked . The squadron was dissolved on September 5, 1945.
post war period
On April 1, 1947, the squadron was named No. 405 Bomber Reconnaissance Squadron at Canadian Forces Base Greenwood and later moved to No. 405 Maritime Reconnaissance Squadron and finally No. Renamed 405 Maritime Patrol Squadron.
As a naval reconnaissance unit, it was equipped with modified Mark-X Lancaster aircraft in April 1950. These were replaced by the P2V7 Neptune in mid-1955 .
In April 1958, No. 405 was the first RCAF squadron to fly the CP-107 Argus . The last flight on this aircraft was on November 10, 1980, before it was replaced by the CP-140 Aurora .
Web links
- Wanted poster
- Portrait on Royal Canadian Air Force
- Squadron History on airforcecollectables.com