Air Force Index

This website uses cookies. By continuing to use this site you agree to accept cookies. If you enjoy this site please consider making a donation.     Site Home     WW2 Home     Add Stories     WW2 Search     Library     Help & FAQs  WW2 Features     Airfields     Allied Army     Allied Air Forces     Allied Navy     Axis Forces     Home Front     Battles     Prisoners of War     Allied Ships     Women at War     Those Who Served     Day-by-Day     Library     The Great War  Submissions     Add Stories     Time Capsule     TWMP on Facebook     Childrens Bookshop  FAQ's     Help & FAQs     Glossary     Volunteering     Contact us     News     Bookshop     About Advertisements World War 2 Two II WW2 WWII 1939 1945

No. 47 Squadron Royal Air Force    No. 47 Squadron was formed at Beverley in Yorkshire on 1 March 1916 as a home defence unit. However after only 6 months in that role it was despatched to Salonika and provided reconnaissance and artillery support to the army in the Macedonian campaign until the surrender of Bulgaria on the 30th September 1918. The British Government decided to give support to General Denikin in his fight against the Soviet Government in South Russia, and No.47 Squadron was chosen as part of the R.A.F. contribution to that campaign. The unit was composed of 'volunteers', a mixture of R.F.C., R.N.A.S., and R.A.F. men. The squadron was provided with 4 specially equipped trains to serve three Flights ('A,' 'B,' and 'C') and the fourth for H.Q. Staff so that each flight could operate as a separate and self-contained unit. Officially the Squadron was in Russia on a training mission, but in fact saw considerable action against Bolshevik forces. No 47 Squadron was officially disbanded in October 1919, and the squadron in Russia was designated as 'A' Squadron, RAF Training Mission, an operational instruction unit to the anti-Bolshevik coalition. 47 Squadron was reformed on 1 February 1920 when No 206 bomber Squadron at Helwan was renumbered. One of the duties was policing in Sudan and the squadron immediately sent a detachment to Khartoum. Another important task during the Squadron's early years in Egypt was to help survey and mark out the route of the Cairo to Baghdad air route, and to carry air mail along that route. In October 1925 the Squadron carried out the first RAF round trip flight between Egypt and Kano, Nigeria, covering 6,500 miles in 24 days, with 85 hours flying time. (This was to become the main supply route into Egypt during WW2.) In 1927 the entire squadron moved to Khartoum in Sudan In June 1939 the squadron started to operate the Vickers Wellesley monoplane bombers, but retaining D flight of Vickers Vincents fitted with floats as seaplanes for operation over the Red Sea.   11th June 1940 Into action August 1940 Special Duties flight created December 1941 Anti-submarine patrols March 1942 Defence 14th April 1942 Aircraft Lost 18th June 1942 Squadron Departs July 1942  26th August 1942 Reorganisation 8th October 1942  26th Oct 1942 Battle of El Alamein December 1942 On the Move June 1943 Squadron Departure September 1943 Anti-shipping Wing formed October 1943  March 1944  October 1944 Conversion October 1944 Conversion December 1944 Refitting 8th February 1945 Bodies recovered from Beaufighter February 1945  September 1945  If you can provide any additional information, please add it here. Logbooks Do you have a WW2 Flying Log Book in your possession? If so it would be a huge help if you could add logbook entries to our new database. Thank you. View Logbook entries Those known to have served with No. 47 Squadron Royal Air Force during the Second World War 1939-1945. Banks John Francis. F/Lt. Shelton Henry John. Sgt. The names on this list have been submitted by relatives, friends, neighbours and others who wish to remember them, if you have any names to add or any recollections or photos of those listed, please Add a Name to this List Records of No. 47 Squadron Royal Air Force from other sources. The Wartime Memories Project is the original WW1 and WW2 commemoration website. Announcements The Wartime Memories Project has been running for 24 years. If you would like to support us, a donation, no matter how small, would be much appreciated, annually we need to raise enough funds to pay for our web hosting and admin or this site will vanish from the web. 18th April 2024 - Please note we currently have a huge backlog of submitted material, our volunteers are working through this as quickly as possible and all names, stories and photos will be added to the site. If you have already submitted a story to the site and your UID reference number is higher than 263925 your information is still in the queue, please do not resubmit, we are working through them as quickly as possible. Looking for help with Family History Research?   Please read our Family History FAQ's The free to access section of The Wartime Memories Project website is run by volunteers and funded by donations from our visitors. If the information here has been helpful or you have enjoyed reaching the stories please conside making a donation, no matter how small, would be much appreciated, annually we need to raise enough funds to pay for our web hosting or this site will vanish from the web. If you enjoy this site please consider making a donation. Want to find out more about your relative's service? Want to know what life was like during the War? Our Library contains an ever growing number diary entries, personal letters and other documents, most transcribed into plain text. We are now on Facebook. Like this page to receive our updates. If you have a general question please post it on our Facebook page. Wanted: Digital copies of Group photographs, Scrapbooks, Autograph books, photo albums, newspaper clippings, letters, postcards and ephemera relating to WW2. We would like to obtain digital copies of any documents or photographs relating to WW2 you may have at home. If you have any unwanted photographs, documents or items from the First or Second World War, please do not destroy them. The Wartime Memories Project will give them a good home and ensure that they are used for educational purposes. Please get in touch for the postal address, do not sent them to our PO Box as packages are not accepted. World War 1 One ww1 wwII second 1939 1945 battalion Did you know? We also have a section on The Great War. and a Timecapsule to preserve stories from other conflicts for future generations. Want to know more about No. 47 Squadron Royal Air Force? There are:2020 items tagged No. 47 Squadron Royal Air Force available in our Library   These include information on officers, regimental histories, letters, diary entries, personal accounts and information about actions during the Second World War. Sgt. Henry John Shelton No. 9 Squadron We have found our father's service record and release book from the RAF. Unfortunately, we didn't ask him enough questions when he was alive. Henry Shelton enlisted in 1936 at Uxbridge and joined the No. 47 Squadron in Khartoum. He trained as an electrician. He returned to England in 1942 and was stationed with No. 460 Squadron at RAF Wymeswold on 10 Aug. 1943. On 9 Sept. 1943, he joined No. 622 Squadron and then moved to No. 9 Squadron on 19 Sept. 1943. On 10 Dec. 1943, he joined the 9009 Servicing Echelon 53 Base. On 9 Sept. 1944, he moved to RAF Bardney. On 2 Aug. 1945, he is listed as 100 P.D.C. Class A, RAF Bardney. He was released to the reserves on 2 Nov. 1945. Anita Shelton Add to this record. F/Lt. John Francis Banks 192 Squadron John Banks qualified as an air bomber on 19th of June 1943. He studied Navigation and map reading in Anson planes at AFU Wigtown to 6th of January 1944, the transferred to No 84 OTU at Harrington where he was flying Wellington bombers with pilot F/O Clarkson. No 84 OTU moved to Desborough on 3rd of March 1944 John and his crewmates joined 192 Squadron at Foulsham on the 7th of April 1944, they flew sorties to Bay of Biscay Channel, the Western Approaches, over the North Sea, Dutch coast, French coast and the Frisians in a Wellington Bomber. He completed one operational tour of 40 sorties. John transferred to 221 Group on the 1st of June 1945 flying Dakotas from Rangoon over Burma. In October he joined 47 Squadron flying Mosquitos as a navigator and was demobbed in 1946. Add to this record. Recomended Reading. Available at discounted prices.

Links Suggest a link

The free section of the Wartime Memories Project website is run by volunteers. We have been helping people find out more about their relatives wartime experiences since 1999 by recording and preserving recollections, documents, photographs and small items. The website is paid for out of our own pockets, library subscriptions and from donations made by visitors. The popularity of the site means that it is far exceeding available resources and we currently have a huge backlog of submissions. If you are enjoying the site, please consider making a donation, however small to help with the costs of keeping the site running. Hosted by: The Wartime Memories Project Website is archived for preservation by the British Library Copyright MCMXCIX - MMXXIV - All Rights Reserved We do not permit the use of any content from this website for the training of LLMs or for use in Generative AI, it also may not be scraped for the purpose of creating other websites.