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No. 211 Squadron RAF: Site Summary Introduction The website carries a reasonable balance of content: technical and personal, from both World Wars, for aircrew and groundcrew, (whether officer or airman, survivor or casualty), from the main operational theatres, for the main aircraft types, and of surviving operations records. The content reflects a determination to draw together a comprehensive narrative by careful research, analysis, interpretation, collation or transcription of the available source material (whether official or personal, original or published), while giving full weight to the individual accounts and photographs shared here with all the laconic candour and generosity so characteristic of the participants. To serve as a more detailed guide to order and content beyond the pages list at left, this summary page describes the structure of the site, with a little background about the Squadron for context. Site navigation So on this site, the Home page has both useful content (briefly introducing the Squadron and the aim of making such a record) and the pages list: the long column of links from top left of each and every page. All links (in the pages list, to other pages, other parts of a page, or other sites) are always shown in the same way: underlined in blue. To go from one page to another, just pick a link and click. The pages are as long as they need to be, for the topic at hand. To scroll up and down any page, use the Pg Up, PgDn, Home and End keys, or the mouse scroll wheel, or swipe on a touchscreen. Help pages Relevant source notes are included on each page, consolidated on the Sources page. Details of site revisions or additions are shown on the Site updates page. The Site search page shows how to search within pages and across the whole site. The Do it yourself page offers some basic notes on research, while the Sites & Links page covers a wide range of related Internet resources. Squadron origins The Squadron’s part in World War I gives a summary of operations; nominal rolls for casualties (the dead, the wounded, those captured or interned), commanding officers, flight commanders, gallantry awards, ground and flying personnel; and an account of the Airco DH9 in 211 Squadron service. The re-forming of the Squadron in the years before World War II is covered by the Operations Record Book transcript for 1937, their deployments from mid-1937 onwards being shown on the Squadron movements page. The growth of the Squadron since reforming is recorded, at least in part, on the Personnel rolls page and its Strength summary. Squadron personnel Over more than 25 years of research, it has been possible to identify perhaps 900 by name at least. There are narratives of greater or lesser extent for 118 men of the Squadron, 76 of them as individual pages. Nominal rolls
The various rolls grew considerably over the years from 2001 to 2016. While some further reconciling may uncover and correct minor errors and omissions, no further major additions are planned. The Australian contingent
Squadron equipment The Hawker Audax and Hind, their origins and their 211 Squadron service are discussed together. The Hind and Audax also figure heavily in An Airman’s Album and on the pages of Geoff Grierson. The Bristol Blenheim Mark I, the Mark IV and their armament are each treated on separate pages in rather more detail, compiled and argued after much study of primary and reliable secondary sources. The Bisley or Blenheim Mark V is mentioned but briefly. The Blenheim days are part of many pages from the Middle East period, in particular depth in the operational accounts of ARG Bax, CFR Clark, KCVD Dundas DFC, JR Gordon-Finlayson DSO DFC, JB Keeping, JG Sharratt and W Wright, and featuring strongly among the photographs of CFR Clark, G Checketts, EL Cooper, RJ Dudman, JE Fryatt, G Grierson, M Sainsbury, JG Sharratt, HF Squire and R Wingrove. For the brief, bitter Far East campaign of February and March 1942, the pages for CO RN Bateson DFC, W Baird, WR Cuttiford, FC Joerin, JB Keeping, AH Kendrick, GM Kendrick, NH Oddie and GA Mockridge (with the Sumatra and Java notes and the brief accounts of a number of other RAAF personnel) together shed some light upon Mark IV operations in a very testing period. With the loss of the Squadron Operations Record Book of the time, the accounts of operations rely on available Flying Log Books or diaries of aircrew, and upon the post-evacuation reports and correspondence of Squadron members. There are few aircraft photographs from this very difficult period. The Bristol Beaufighter and the de Havilland Mosquito are discussed on separate pages, and then in the following Squadron and personal narratives: India and Burma, Burma Boys, A Carter, J Carruthers, A Goodinson, RC Kemp, PF Lockyer, G Manderson DFC, D Marsh-Collis, JS Mitchell, JH Oblein, LE Ramsay, J Robertson, DA Spencer DFC, P Spooner, E Watts, ME Walters, DE Winton and EL Wood. The record of the Squadron’s complement of these aircraft has been very much amplified thanks to the Log Books of DA Spencer DFC, TD Taylor, and EL Wood; the diary of the late Cpl A Goodinson (for the Beaufighter) and, for the Mosquito, the photographic record has been much enriched by the photographs and Log Book entries of ME Walters, E Watts and DE Winton. Operational theatres The Squadron records page explains the form and function of RAF Operations Record Books. There are transriptions of the Squadron’s records for 1937, 1938, 1939, 1940, 1941, 1943 and 1946. For 1942, I have compiled a partial reconstruction from available Flying Log Books, Diaries and other records of the day. Following the belated entry of Italy as a World War II belligerent in the Middle East and Africa, 211 Squadron was about 12 months continuously on operations (June 1940—June 1941), initially in the Western Desert, then in Greece (where on Easter Sunday 1941 the Squadron suffered the loss of 6 aircraft and their crews in a single raid), and finally in Palestine before being withdrawn to Wadi Gazouza in the Sudan for training operations and the later formation of 72 Operational Training Unit (OTU). The story is rounded out with war-time and modern photographs of Menidi (Tatoi) and Paramythia. Transferred to the Far East in January 1942 following the Japanese invasion of Malaya, the Squadron saw brief intense action from February to March 1942 in Sumatra and Java, suffering heavy losses and dispersal in the field leading to evacuation or captivity. Re-formed in India from August 1943, they were heavily engaged in the second Far East campaign over Burma for 17 months from January 1944 to May 1945, operating the rocket-equipped Bristol Type 156 Beaufighter X in the long-range strike fighter role. Converting to the de Havilland DH.98 Mosquito FB VI from June 1945, the Squadron was deployed to Thailand from November 1945, disbanding there for the final time in March 1946. The Middle East and Far East theatre notes were compiled from analysis of a variety of original and secondary sources, including Squadron records and the contemporary narratives and later recall of Squadron members. Across the Styx is transcribed from Wisdom’s Middle East Parade article of 1941. The Sumatra and Java material is transcribed from RAAF Casualty Section Reports with additional commentary of my own, while the India and Burma campaign notes were originally compiled by Peter Spooner in the Squadron Adjutant’s Office on 1 December 1945. Squadron operations There are narratives of greater or lesser extent for 118 men of the Squadron, 75 as individual pages.
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