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Toujours à propos A history of No. 211 Squadron RAF in two world wars, as recorded at the time and as recalled today by surviving members. This website was launched on Easter Sunday 2001, the 60th anniversary of the Squadron’s most unfortunate operation in Greece. Historical summary In the great mid-1930s expansion of the RAF, 211 Squadron re-formed as a day bomber unit at Mildenhall in June 1937. Initially equipped with the Hawker Audax, the Squadron was soon to re-equip with the Hawker Hind and move to Grantham and Aldergrove. As world tensions rose through the mid and late 1930s, the Squadron was posted to the Middle East in April 1938 with its Hinds. There they remained, to re-equip with the Bristol Blenheim I as a medium bomber unit in early 1939. With the opening of Middle East hostilities in June 1940, 211 Squadron mounted operations against the Italians in the Western Desert. When Italy invaded Greece in late October 1940, the Squadron formed part of the British Air Forces contingent sent to support the Greeks. Almost destroyed by the Luftwaffe in the Spring of 1941, the Squadron withdrew successfully from Greece to Palestine, to be briefly active against the Vichy French in Syria that May. After 12 months of front-line service, from June 1941 they were given a six month rest. Tasked to operate as a reserve training squadron and form No 72 Operational Training Unit, they moved to the Sudan with a mixed bag of Blenheim Is and Blenheim IVs. From late December 1941, the Squadron was re-forming with old hands extricated from 72 OTU and a considerable number of RAAF aircrew. Equipped with refurbished but ageing Blenheim IVs, in early 1942 they were sent in strength to the Far East for the first disastrous campaign against the Japanese in Sumatra and Java, only to be disbanded in the field. In late February and early March 1942, a lucky few were evacuated from Java to Ceylon and Australia, while many more fell captive. Re-formed in India from August 1943 as a long-range strike fighter unit with the Bristol Beaufighter X, they were to be heavily engaged against the Japanese in Burma from January 1944 until May 1945. Stood down from operational readiness to convert to the de Havilland Mosquito FB VI that June and July, they were expecting to take part in Operation Zipper, the invasion of Malaya planned for September 1945. However, following the Japanese surrender that August, the Squadron was eventually posted to Thailand in November 1945 as part of the delayed Operation Bibber deployment to Bangkok. There the tropical conditions found out weaknesses in their aircraft, and the Squadron was disbanded at Don Muang in March 1946. 211 Squadron saw much action over the course of the war. Equipped with either three-seat or two-seat aircraft (and either 12, 18 or all too briefly 24 of them at its disposal) and some 400 air and ground personnel overall, the Squadron suffered the loss of 132 men killed in air operations and accidents (nearly all aircrew) and at least 366 taken Prisoner of War (of whom just 28 were aircrew). In the Far East, perhaps 357 men (19 of them aircrew) were taken captive by the Japanese: of these, 185 men (7 of them aircrew) are known to have died in captivity. From 1938 to 1945, 84 Australians are known to have been members of the Squadron, 44 of them as wartime operational aircrew, 22 of whom died in training, on 211 Squadron operations or in captivity. Toujours à propos Characteristically, the boys are off-hand about it all to this day, simply calling the worst moments “a very shaky do” or “pretty hairy stuff”. They will tell you that they were (and are) just ordinary fellows. And so they may be. But the things they did, 60 and more years ago, were far from ordinary and well they know it. War is an evil thing, in which the finest things in men and women are called forth to destruction. We should give thanks, that the 211s did what they were asked to do and that some of them got away with it. As a respectful archive from those who wished to record, for all who wish to seek for themselves, this account does not aim to romanticise or glorify war. Many years have now passed since young men went to fight against awful things. Their service was not in vain, despite the waste of war, yet none of those who returned were untouched by what they had survived. As for those who went but were never to return: “They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old; The Squadron badge The Squadron motto The Ode Site origins Unearthing the extent of the post-war recording of the Squadron’s history has required patient search and considerable luck. In the 1980s, articles by ex-211s Eric Bevington-Smith (in Air Enthusiast No 16) and James Dunnet (in Flypast No 28) were followed by Air War for Yugoslavia, Greece and Crete 1940–41 of Shores, Cull and Malizia in 1987, and in 1988 by Smith’s Victory of a Sort—The British in Greece 1941–46. In the 1990s, articles by Squadron Leader Andy Thomas (in Aviation News) and by George Checketts (ex-211 Squadron) in Flypast also helped the Squadron emerge from the mists of the past. HF Squire’s Middle East Scrapbook of 1997, followed by Hugh Campbell and Ron Lovell’s So Long Singapore in 2000 and James Dunnet’s Blenheim Over the Balkans in 2001 have all contributed greatly to redressing the Squadron’s long silence. Meanwhile, Graham Warner’s The Bristol Blenheim—A Complete History has at last given full recognition to a remarkable aircraft. Except as a cross-check I have drawn little upon these works, out of deference to the long labours of the authors. The March 2009 publication of Dennis Spencer’s Looking Backwards Over Burma has pretty well brought the Squadron story full-circle. Prompted by the book of Shores & co, in 1996 my father CFR “Nobby” Clark set down in manuscript form some notes of his service with 211 Squadron from 1940 to 1942. In setting out simply to preserve those notes, I found they revealed a number of puzzles. These drew me in to more and more research, so that with his assistance by 1998 the simple copy had become a little book, our 211 Squadron RAF, Greece, 1940–1941: An Observer's Notes and Recollections. That little book, though limited in circulation and now out of print, in turn drew forth more and more enquiries. It seemed to me that the best way to meet that interest (and with proper respect to my father’s desire for privacy) was to turn the book into a website. In that way, I hoped also to preserve the later material I had accumulated, while making the whole story easier to find. My father died in September 2003. All our original book’s content is included here, much revised and with much additional material. The story now spans the Great War activities of the Squadron and the whole World War II period from the re-forming of the Squadron in 1937 to its final disbanding in 1946. Period background is covered in some detail, with my own notes on the theatres in which they operated and the various aircraft types with which they were equipped. The Squadron story is told from original records and from the personal collections of many members of the Squadron, whether RAF, RAAF, RCAF or RNZAF. Rather than bringing the research and presentation task to an end, the website has become an ever-growing account of the recall, records, letters and photographs of 211 Squadron RAF and its personnel. Acknowledgements Others still (or their immediate family) have contacted me directly and with equal generosity—and my thanks to them are recorded on the pages that have resulted. Their wonderful pictures and stories helped impel me to develop this website as a way of safely recording the 211 Squadron story and making it accessible to readers. Along the way I have made contact with a great many other individuals, too numerous to mention but whom I also thank. The fine research facilities of the National Archives of Australia, the National Library of Australia and the Research Centre at the Australian War Memorial (with the expert and cheerful assistance of their staff) made compiling the original book possible and very absorbing. I am most grateful to the National Library of Australia for the long-term preservation of this website in the PANDORA archive programme. I thank Tim Hughes for his research on my behalf at the UK Public Records Office (now The National Archives), and the Printed Books Dept staff at the Imperial War Museum who were most helpful in the earliest days of the project. For permission to use images from their collections, I thank the Australian War Memorial, the Aviation Heritage Museum of the RAAF Association WA Division, and the International Association of Aviation Historians (Air Britain) whose publications have also been of much interest and help. The author & publisher
Copyright Crown Copyright material is reproduced with the permission of the Controller of Her Britannic Majesty’s Stationery Office and the Queen’s Printer for Scotland, under the terms of the Click-Use Licence. The 211 Squadron badge is British Crown Copyright/MoD, reproduced with the permission of the Controller of Her Britannic Majesty’s Stationery Office. Don Clark
www.211squadron.org © DR Clark & others 1998–2009
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