No. 153 Squadron

No. 153 Squadron RAF was reformed on 24 October 1941 at Ballyhalbert in Northern Ireland, drawn from A Flight of No. 256 Squadron, and served its first WW2 incarnation as a night fighter unit equipped with Defiants and then Bristol Beaufighters. The squadron moved to North Africa in December 1942, operating under the North African Coastal Air Force to provide night cover for Allied forces and flying intruder sorties over southern France and northern Italy before disbanding on 5 September 1944. It was reformed just weeks later on 7 October 1944 at Kirmington, Lincolnshire, this time as a Lancaster heavy bomber squadron within No. 1 Group, Bomber Command, absorbing approximately twenty crews from No. 166 Squadron. The squadron flew its first bombing operation on its very first day of existence, despatching eleven Lancasters against Emmerich, before moving to RAF Scampton in mid-October 1944, which became its home for the remainder of the war. Flying 1,041 operational sorties in total, the squadron’s last offensive mission targeted Berchtesgaden on 25 April 1945, after which it participated in Operation Manna, dropping food to the Dutch population, and ferried liberated prisoners of war home from the Continent. The squadron’s Latin motto, Noctividus (“Seeing by night”), reflects its origins as a nocturnal fighter unit. It disbanded on 28 September 1945.