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Aircraft - Locations - Group and Duty - Books
No.692 (Fellowship of the Bellows) Squadron was part of the light night striking force of Bomber Command and was the first Mosquito squadron to use 4,000lb bombs operationally.
The squadron was formed on 1 January 1944 and formed part of the Light Night Striking Force in No.8 Group. This force carried out small scale Mosquito raids over German cities, with increasing impact as the war went on.
On the night of 23/24 February 1944 the squadron became the first Mosquito squadron to drop 4,000lb bombs in anger, during a raid on Dusseldorf. Mosquitoes eventually carried the 4,000lb bomb as far as Berlin.
The squadron was named after the Fellowship of the Bellows, an Anglo-Argentine group that raised funds to buy aircraft.
During the war the squadron took part in 310 missions, flying 3,237 sorties for the loss of 17 aircraft, an impressively low rate of 0.5%. The squadron was disbanded on 20 September 1945.
Aircraft
January-June 1944: de Havilland Mosquito IV
March 1944-September 1945: de Havilland Mosquito XVI
Location
January-June 1945: Graveley
June 1945-September 1945: Gransden Lodge
Squadron Codes: P3
Duty
January 1944 onwards: Light Night Striking Force, Bomber Command
Part of
January 1944 onwards: Light Night Striking Force; No.8 Group; Bomber Command
Bomber Offensive, Sir Arthur Harris.
The autobiography of Bomber Harris, giving his view of the strategic bombing campaign in its immediate aftermath. Invaluable for the insights it provides into Harris’s approach to the war, what he was trying to achieve and the problems he faced. Harris perhaps overstates his case, not entirely surprisingly given how soon after the end of the war this book was written (Read Full Review)
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