No. 405 Squadron — Vancouver

Group: 6 Group
Home station: RAF Gransden Lodge

About

No. 405 “Vancouver” Squadron was the first Royal Canadian Air Force bomber squadron to form overseas, becoming operational in June 1941. It flew the Vickers Wellington and then the Handley Page Halifax from Yorkshire airfields including RAF Pocklington and RAF Topcliffe, with a spell loaned to Coastal Command for patrols over the Bay of Biscay.

Returning to the bomber offensive, it joined the new Canadian No. 6 Group, and was then selected as the only RCAF squadron to serve in the elite Pathfinder Force of No. 8 Group. Flying the Avro Lancaster from RAF Gransden Lodge, it marked targets for the main force from 1943 until the end of the war in Europe.

Sources: This page was compiled from publicly available historical sources, including 405 Squadron Association — History and History of War — No. 405 'Vancouver' Squadron (RCAF) in the Second World War. The text is original and has been written from factual source material; no source text has been copied unless specifically quoted and attributed.

Photographs

Royal Air Force Bomber Command, 1942-1945. CH17362 — Royal Air Force Bomber Command, 1942-1945. Armourers check over a mixed bomb load of three 1,000-lb MC bombs and small bomb containers (SBCs) filled with 30-lb incendiary bombs, loaded into the bomb-bay and wing cells of a Handley Page Halifax Mark II of No. 405 Squadron RCAF at Pocklington, Yorkshire.

ⓘ licence & credit
Royal Air Force official photographer, Forward (F/O) / Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons — https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Royal_Air_Force_Bomber_Command,_1942-1945._CH17362.jpgView source & full licence →

Royal Air Force Bomber Command, 1939-1941. CH4718 — Royal Air Force Bomber Command, 1939-1941. Officers of No. 405 Squadron RCAF, the first Canadian bomber unit,outside their mess at Topcliffe, Yorkshire. Back row, (left to right): Pilot Officer W McEwen, Pilot Officer R K Durbridge, Pilot Officer K F Thiele, Flying Officer W Taylor, Flying Officer W Jefferson Smith, Pilot Officer G Kelly, Pilot Officer J Morris, Pilot Officer T C Bradshaw, Pilot Officer C Morris, Pilot Officer D Miller, Mr D A Rait, Pilot Officer H F Beckett, Pilot Officer G M Worthington, Pilot Officer M K Solheim, Pilot Officer G Gibson, Pilot Officer R Locke, Flying Officer S M Russell, Pilot Officer J Cherry, Pilot Officer P J Wilson. Middle row, (left to right): Mr P A Canning, Flight Lieutenant S Robertson, Flight Lieutenant J Garneau, Acting Squadron Officer P E Messenger, Flight Lieutenant J Searby, Flight Lieutenant G N Street, Flight Lieutenant G N Ruthven, Flying Officer V Tapp, Flying Officer C Lockyer, Flight Lieutenant A F Allen, Flying Officer E C Bulmer

ⓘ licence & credit
Royal Air Force official photographer / Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons — https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Royal_Air_Force_Bomber_Command,_1939-1941._CH4718.jpgView source & full licence →

Royal Air Force Bomber Command, 1942-1945. CH11041 — Royal Air Force Bomber Command, 1942-1945. The first Canadian-built Avro Lancaster B Mark X, KB700 "The Ruhr Express", taxying after landing at Northolt, Middlesex, following a delivery flight across the Atlantic. KB700 was the first of 300 aircraft built by Victory Aircraft of Malton, Ontario, and flew operationally with Nos. 405 and 419 Squadrons RCAF.

ⓘ licence & credit
Crouch F W (F/O), Royal Air Force official photographer / Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons — https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Royal_Air_Force_Bomber_Command,_1942-1945._CH11041.jpgView source & full licence →

No service records linked to this squadron yet. Aircraft, crews and sorties will appear here soon.