No. 427 Squadron — Lion
- Group
- 6 Group
- Home station
- RAF Leeming
About
No. 427 “Lion” Squadron was formed in November 1942 as a Royal Canadian Air Force bomber unit and joined the Canadian No. 6 Group at the start of 1943. Flying first the Vickers Wellington, it moved in May 1943 to RAF Leeming in Yorkshire — its home for the rest of the war — and there converted to the Handley Page Halifax, taking the Avro Lancaster in the final months.
The squadron owed its “Lion” name to an unusual sponsor: the film studio Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer adopted it in 1943, lending its stars’ names to the aircraft and presenting a bronze lion. The squadron’s own badge paired a lion for England with a maple leaf for Canada, beneath the motto Ferte manus certas — “strike sure”.
Sources: This page was compiled from publicly available historical sources, including 427 Squadron Association — History Overview and History of War — No. 427 (Lion) 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.
Operations flown
- Operation Nuremberg raid — 30 March 1944 (Nuremberg)
Aircraft (3)
| Serial | Code | Type | Fate |
|---|---|---|---|
| LV898 | ZL-D | Handley Page Halifax | Lost on operations |
| LV923 | ZL-M | Handley Page Halifax | Lost on operations |
| LW618 | ZL-E | Handley Page Halifax | Lost on operations |
No service records linked to this squadron yet. Aircraft, crews and sorties will appear here soon.