No. 228 Squadron

No. 228 Squadron was a Coastal Command flying boat unit that flew the Short Sunderland throughout the Second World War. Reforming at Pembroke Dock in 1936, it moved to Egypt in mid-1939 and returned to UK waters at the outbreak of war. In January 1940 a squadron Sunderland became the first Coastal Command aircraft to contribute to a successful U-boat kill, helping to force U-55 to the surface. From mid-1940 the squadron operated across the Mediterranean, providing reconnaissance ahead of the Fleet Air Arm’s Taranto attack in November 1940 and lifting nearly nine hundred soldiers, including the King of Greece, during the April 1941 evacuation from Greece. Returning to Britain in 1942, the squadron flew anti-submarine patrols from Lough Erne and then Pembroke Dock, sinking U-607 and U-383 in the summer of 1943 and U-970 in the Bay of Biscay two days after D-Day. The squadron disbanded on 4 June 1945.