No. 85 Squadron

No. 85 Operational Training Unit was formed on 15 June 1944 at RAF Husbands Bosworth, Leicestershire, carved from an element of No. 14 OTU which had previously occupied the same station. Assigned to No. 92 Group within RAF Bomber Command, the unit trained night bomber crews on the Vickers Wellington, operating at three-quarter establishment strength. Courses ran to a structured programme of eight weeks’ flying and two weeks of ground instruction, with intakes of twelve crews every fortnight and a capacity of sixty crews at any one time. The station’s aircraft carried the code letters 9P and 2X throughout the unit’s existence. No. 85 OTU was disbanded on 14 June 1945, almost exactly one year after its formation, as Bomber Command contracted rapidly following the end of the war in Europe.