No. 664 Squadron RCAF

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Active9 December 1944 – 31 May 1946

Country

Canada

Allegiance

Canada

Branch

Royal Canadian Air Force and Royal Canadian Artillery

No. 664 Squadron RCAF
Active	9 December 1944 – 31 May 1946
Country	Canada
Allegiance	Canada
Branch	Royal Canadian Air Force and Royal Canadian Artillery
Role	Air Observation/Radio Intelligence Gathering
Part of	RAF Fighter Command No. 84 Group, Second Tactical Air Force
Battle honours	France and Germany 1945^[1]
Commanders
Notable commanders	Major D. Ely, Major D.W. Blyth
Insignia
Squadron Codes	AW (Dec 194ا4 – May 1946)
Aircraft flown
Reconnaissance	Auster Mks.IV & V

Military unit

No. 664 "Air Observation Post" Squadron RCAF was formed in England during the Second World War. It was manned principally by Royal Canadian Artillery (RCA) and Royal Canadian Air Force (RCAF) personnel, with select British artillery pilots briefly seconded to assist in squadron formation.

The squadron was formed on 9 December 1944, at RAF Andover, its principal role being to direct artillery fire from the air. The pilots were officers recruited from the Royal Canadian Artillery and trained to fly at No. 22 Elementary Flying Training School RAF, RAF Cambridge, further developing advanced flying skills at No. 43 Operational Training Unit RAF (43 OTU), RAF Andover. The first commanding officer was Major Dave Ely, RCA; the operational commanding officer was Major D.W. Blyth, RCA. In England the squadron operated under the overall control of No. 70 Group, RAF Fighter Command; prior to deployment to the European continent, the squadron was transferred to No. 84 Group, Second Tactical Air Force (2 TAF).

In January 1945, the squadron was deployed to RAF Penshurst, deploying to the Netherlands in March 1945.^[2] The squadron flew its first operational sortie over the enemy front in the Netherlands on March 22, 1945. The principal aircraft flown in action was the Taylorcraft Auster Mk. IV and V. After V-E Day on May 8, 1945, the squadron was tasked with flying mail and passengers for First Canadian Army. The squadron continued flying like duties for the Canadian Army Occupation Force (CAOF) until the spring of 1946. 664 (AOP) Squadron, RCAF, was disbanded at Bad Zwischenahn, Germany, on 31 May 1946. The squadron had no motto or heraldic badge assigned to it.

Although the squadron's trained aircrew observers performed yeoman service in aerial action against the enemy, aircrew associations across Canada did not grant membership to AOP observers, as those aircrew were not officially issued with cloth wings during the war.^[3]

References

Notes

↑ "664 (Air Observation Post) Squadron". 9 March 2005.
↑ "Leigh in the War, 1939–45" (PDF). Leigh and District Historical Society. September 1993. Archived from the original (PDF) on 17 June 2012. Retrieved 13 January 2010.
↑ "Membership Eligibility-Toronto Aircrew Association". Toronto Aircrew Association. 2008-11-11. Archived from the original on 2011-07-17. Retrieved 2008-11-11.

Bibliography

Library and Archives Canada – Reel #C12430. War Diary of 664(AOP)(RCAF) Squadron.
Blackburn, George. Where The Hell are the Guns?, Toronto, Canada: McClelland & Stewart Publishing, 1997. ISBN 0-7710-1504-6.
Fromow, Lt-Col. D.L. Canada's Flying Gunners: A History of the Air Observation Post of the Royal Regiment of Canadian Artillery. Ottawa, Canada: Air Observation Post Pilots Association, 2002. ISBN 0-9730055-0-5.
Knight, Darrell. Artillery Flyers at War: A History of the 664, 665, and 666 ‘Air Observation Post’ Squadrons of the Royal Canadian Air Force. Bennington, Vermont, USA: Merriam Press, 2010. ISBN 978-0-557-32963-2
Stewart, Major A.B. Battle History 666. Epe, the Netherlands, 1945. Republished by Abel Book Company, Calgary, 2006.

External links

Archived 2011-07-17 at the Wayback Machine
Canadian Forces Directorate of History and Heritage

Royal Canadian Air Force squadrons

Squadron
numbers

Pre-WWII Squadrons	1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 18
100-series squadrons	110 111 112 113 114 115 116 117 118 119 120 121 122 123 124 125 126 127 128 129 130 131 132 133 134 135 145 147 149 160 161 162 163 164 165 166 167 168 170
WW2 400-series Article XV squadrons	400 401 402 403 404 405 406 407 408 409 410 411 412 413 414 415 416 417 418 419 420 421 422 423 424 425 426 427 428 429 430 431 432 433 434 435 436 437 438 439 440 441 442 443
WW2 600-series AOP squadrons¹	664 665 666
Post-war squadrons	103 444 445 446 447 448 449 450

Squadron
codes

WW2 Canada

1 August 1939 - May 1942	AY BK BT DM EX FD FY JY KA KO LT MX NA OP OY PB QN RE TM XE XO YO ZD
Unit formation in 1940 - May 1942	AN BF GK GV LU PO QE TQ RA
Dartmouth Hurricanes 1942	1 or 2 1 or 2 1 or 2
May 1942 - 16 October 1942	AE AF AG AN AZ BA BD BV DE DZ EA ED EN ET FG FN GA GR HA HJ JK KL LM LR LV LZ MA MK MR NO PQ QG RA RS SZ TF TN UV UY VD VW XP XY YA YH YZ ZM ZR

WW2 Overseas
1940-1946

Operational squadrons	AB AE AL AN AU AW BM BX 2I CI DB DG DH DN EE EQ 5V FD F3 6U GX G9 HU I8 9G KH KP KW LQ NA ND NH OW PT QB QL QO QY RA RR RU RV SE SP SW TH VR VZ WL YI YO YZ ZL ZU Z2
Transport squadrons	OWL² ODM ODN ODO

Post-WW2
1947 - 1958

1947 - 1951 (VCXXA)³	AA AB AC AD AG AH AK AM AN AO AP AQ AT AU AW AX BA BC BN BQ BU XV
1951 - 1958 (XXnnn)⁴	AF AM AN AP AQ AS AX BA BB BH BQ BR BT BU BV DL FG GW HG HO IG JF JW KE KH LP MN NQ PF PR QP QT RX SA SP SV TF UD VN XK XV

¹Aircraft administered and serviced by the RCAF but crewed by the Royal Canadian Artillery.

² Non-standard code as unit using OW added L. Letters normally denoted parent Command, aircraft type (L Liberator transport, D Dakota etc), unit, and individual aircraft.

³ VC

XXA where VC was the civil code used by the RCAF replacing CF-, XX was the unit code and A was the aircraft ID letter

⁴ XX

nnn where XX was the unit code and nnn was the last 3 digits of the serial number. Unit code was replaced with "RCAF" in 1958

Notes

Bibliography

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