No. 161 Squadron — Special Duties

No. 161 Squadron was the second of the Royal Air Force’s special-duties units, formed in February 1942 at RAF Newmarket — partly from a Lysander flight passed over by No. 138 Squadron and partly from the King’s Flight. Like its sister squadron it flew the secret work of the Special Operations Executive and the intelligence services, and in April 1942 it joined No. 138 at the clandestine airfield of RAF Tempsford.

Where much of the work involved parachuting agents and stores from larger aircraft such as the Armstrong Whitworth Whitley and the Handley Page Halifax, No. 161 specialised in the most delicate task of all — actually landing in occupied territory. Its Westland Lysanders and Lockheed Hudsons would slip into rough fields in France by moonlight to set down and collect agents, often flying out from Tangmere on the south coast during the “moon period” around the full moon. The squadron was disbanded soon after the war in Europe ended.