Operation Benedict

7 September 1941 — Vaenga (murmansk), Ussr

Date
7 September 1941
Command
Bomber Command
Target
Vaenga (murmansk), Ussr, Soviet Union
Force dispatched
39 aircraft

Narrative

Operation Benedict was the Royal Air Force expedition to northern Russia in the autumn of 1941. To support the hard-pressed Soviet defenders of the Murmansk region and to introduce Red Air Force pilots to the Hawker Hurricane, No. 151 Wing — Nos. 81 and 134 Squadrons under Wing Commander H. N. G. Ramsbottom-Isherwood — was sent to the Arctic. Twenty-four Hurricane Mk IIBs flew off the carrier HMS Argus to the Soviet airfield at Vaenga, near Murmansk, on 7 September 1941, while a further fifteen arrived crated aboard the first Arctic convoy, Operation Dervish. Through the autumn the Wing flew from Vaenga, covering Soviet bombers and contesting the Luftwaffe over the Kola Peninsula before handing its aircraft and expertise to the Soviet Air Force and withdrawing in late November. It was a singular episode of Anglo-Soviet cooperation: four members of the Wing — Ramsbottom-Isherwood, Squadron Leaders Rook and Miller, and the sergeant-pilot Charlton Haw — became the first foreigners ever to receive the Soviet Order of Lenin.

Squadrons: No. 81 Squadron · No. 134 Squadron

Sortie details (which aircraft from which squadron, which crew flew, the outcome) will populate this page once the TNA AIR 27 squadron-diary importer arrives.

The fallen

148 airmen in this archive died on 7 September 1941 or the day that followed. For a raid of this kind these are overwhelmingly the night's losses, though a death-date match is not by itself proof an individual flew this operation.

See all 148 who died on 7 September →