No. 617 Squadron
|
No. 617 Squadron |
|
|---|---|
.jpg) The Dambusters squadron badge on the tail of a tornado |
|
| Lineup | March 21, 1943 |
| Country |
 United Kingdom
|
| Armed forces | United Kingdom Armed Forces |
| Armed forces |
 Royal Air Force
|
| Location | Marine Corps Air Station Beaufort , RAF Marham planned |
| Former locations |
RAF Lossiemouth , RAF Scampton , RAF Coningsby , RAF Woodhall Spa , RAF Waddington , Digri ( India ), RAF Binbrook |
| Nickname | "The Dambusters" |
| motto | "Après moi, le déluge" (German: "After me the deluge") |
| Marking of the relay on the Panavia Tornado GR.4 (until 2014) |
 |
| Previous missions | Operation Chastise (1943) • D-Day (1944) • Sinking of the Tirpitz (1944) • Operation Granby (1991) • Operation Telic (2003–2011) |
| commander | |
| Current commander |
Wing Commander John Butcher |
| Aircraft | |
| bomber | Avro Lancaster , Avro Lincoln , Avro Vulcan , English Electric Canberra |
|
Fighter aircraft / helicopter |
Panavia Tornado , Lockheed Martin F-35 |
The No. 617 Squadron (617th Squadron) - from May 1943 also called Dambusters (Eng. "Dam breakers") - is a squadron of the British Royal Air Force . It was founded during the Second World War and since then has been dissolved and reorganized several times. The 617 Squadron is the RAF's first flying squadron equipped with the Lockheed Martin F-35 .
Use in World War II
Operation Chastise
The unit received its nickname Dambusters in the course of Operation Chastise , attacks with special roll bombs on the German Eder , Möhne and Sorpe dams on the night of May 16-17, 1943 under the leadership of Wing Commander Guy Gibson . Since these operations, the relay coat of arms has adorned a pierced dam, above which three red lightning bolts are drawn with the French motto Après moi, le déluge (German: "After me the deluge" ).
Stakes with Tallboy and Grand Slam
As the war progressed, the squadron was tasked with making precision attacks against targets that could only be destroyed with the enormous explosive power of the Tallboy and Grand Slam bombs. The Dambusters missions flew against the submarine bunkers in Brest , La Rochelle and Bremen ( Bunker Valentin ) and destroyed the Schildescher Viaduct near Bielefeld in early 1945 . One of the last missions in the Second World War took the squadron to Berchtesgaden in April 1945 to destroy Hitler's " Adlerhorst " headquarters .
Sinking of the Tirpitz
Another well-known mission was carried out by the Lancaster of the squadron against the German battleship Tirpitz . The ship had been in the northern Norwegian Kåfjord since 1943 and posed a threat to shipping to and from Murmansk to supply the Soviet Union through the USA and the United Kingdom; In addition, the ship should not be able to be used against the invasion forces on D-Day. From April 1944, attacks began to sink the ship, but they were unsuccessful and were also out of range of the bombers from the British Isles. On September 15, the 617th Squadron flew together with the 9th therefore the first attacks from Yagodnik near Arkhangelsk against the Tirpitz, which initially made them unseaworthy. After being moved to the Tromsøfjord in October 1944, she was attacked again on November 12th and capsized by two of the 29 tallboys launched . 1204 members of the Tirpitz crew were killed.
Avro Lancaster
The "Dambusters" flew four-engined long - range bombers of the Avro Lancaster type during World War II , the only aircraft that at that time was able to use the heavy, mostly custom-made bombs such as the "Tallboy" or the "Grand Slam".
Cold War
The unit still exists today as a bomber squadron. After the war, it flew the Avro Lincoln B.2 between September 1946 and January 1952 , then the English Electric Canberra B.2 / B.6 (B.6 from February 1955) until the end of 1955 and the Avro between May 1958 and December 1981 Vulcan B.1 / 1A / 2 / 2A (B.1 from September 1961). The squadron had been equipped with the Panavia Tornado GR.1 / GR.4 since January 1983 ; the last tornado operation took place at the end of January 2014 over Afghanistan ( ISAF ).
21st century
The squadron was deactivated on April 1, 2014 and was intended to be the first British squadron for the Lockheed Martin F-35B. The personnel planned for the deployment and launch of the F-35B has been retraining in the United States at Marine Corps Air Station Beaufort in South Carolina since 2016, and the squadron was officially reactivated in the United States in April 2018.
Aircraft codes
During the seven decades since the squadron was in existence and due to the dissolutions and realignments, the identification letters on the aircraft changed. From 1943 to 1946, the Lancaster carried the combination AJand KC(until 1952) as well as YZalone in 1945 and only on aircraft that were supposed to drop the Grand Slam bombs. The Panavia tornadoes carried the license plates AJ-Aup AJ-Z.
Others
The dam attack the unit during the Second World War was the subject of the British feature film in May 1943 - The destruction of the dams ( The Dam Busters , 1954) by Michael Anderson . The story is to be remade by Peter Jackson shortly for about 50 million euros. Filming locations are New Zealand and Great Britain.
See also
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ full: 617 Squadron Royal Air Force. In: raf-lincolnshire.info. March 25, 2018. Retrieved March 25, 2018 .
- ↑ a b F-35B ramp start tests completed. In: FLIGHT REVIEW. October 18, 2017, accessed March 23, 2018 .
- ↑ DARREN BOYLE: Return of the Dambusters! Squadron is to be reformed to fly Britain's new stealth fighter jets from HMS Queen Elizabeth aircraft carrier. In: Daily Mail. December 2, 2017, accessed March 23, 2018 .
- ↑ Gareth Corfield: F-35B Block 4 software upgrades will cost Britain £ 345m. In: The Register. March 23, 2018, accessed March 23, 2018 .
- ^ RAF's legendary Dambusters squadron reforms to fly F-35 jets, RAF News, April 18, 2018