R.I.P. 26 Nov 1969 - 50 years ago

[Wander00]

Aah, I wrote the Op Order and Admin Instruction for the move of Watton assets to Cottesmore, the swansong to my first RAF career

[Lima Juliet]

Originally Posted by RAFEngO74to09

No - Coastal Command was absorbed into Strike Command in November 1969.

Strike Command had been formed in April 1968 by the merger of Fighter Command and Bomber Command which became 1 Gp and 11 Gp respectively.

Signals Command followed in January 1969 - then Coastal Command in November 1969 - then by Air Support Command in September 1972.

You missed out 18 Gp - which was the maritime group that replaced Coastal Command in 1969. With Shacks, Rods, Buccs, Canberras and the Maritime HQ at Northwood. It merged with 11 Gp around 96/97. It was part of the reason we ended up with Brian Burridge as CinC STC.

And we ended up with the b0ll0x 11/18 Gp...

[freemark]

I can’t post a URL, but if you search Stuff NZ website there is an interesting article, including this “The VC went posthumously to RNZAF Flying Officer Lloyd Allan Trigg. Born in rural Houhara, Northland, the 29-year-old was serving with the RAF's 200 Squadron RAF Coastal Command in West Africa when the B-24 Liberator bomber he was commanding sighted a surfacing German U-Boat on 11 August 1943 - 386 kms off the coast of Dakar.”

[Union Jack]

Originally Posted by freemark

I can’t post a URL, but if you search Stuff NZ website there is an interesting article, including this “The VC went posthumously to RNZAF Flying Officer Lloyd Allan Trigg. Born in rural Houhara, Northland, the 29-year-old was serving with the RAF's 200 Squadron RAF Coastal Command in West Africa when the B-24 Liberator bomber he was commanding sighted a surfacing German U-Boat on 11 August 1943 - 386 kms off the coast of Dakar.”

Since Freemark cannot yet post links, I hope that I may be permitted firstly to thank him for highlighting this unique award, and secondly to add a link on his behalf, namely https://www.thevintagenews.com/2016/...ictoria-cross/ which contains some intriguing details, most importantly the fact that Flying Officer Trigg's VC was awarded solely on the evidence of the U-468's Commanding Officer, one of the handful of Germans who survived the action, who only survived themselves after the loss of the Liberator and the U-boat by using a dinghy which came loose from the Liberator, before finally being picked up by the Royal Navy.

Jack