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. 623 Squadron Royal Air Force    No 623 Squadron was formed, from 'C' flight of No 218, at Downham Market on 10 August 1943. It was operational with Stirling III bombers the same night it was formed, part of the main force of 3 Group Bomber Command. After three months of night raids against Germany, 5 Group converted to Stirlings, resulting in No 623 disbanding and the crews going to No 90, No 218 and No 514 Squadrons, 5 Group Bomber Command. Airfields No. 623 Squadron flew from: RAF Downham Market, Norfolk from 10th August 1943 (formed. Stirling III) disbanded 6th December 1943.   25th Sep 1943 623 Squadron Stirling lost 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. 623 Squadron Royal Air Force during the Second World War 1939-1945. Gibson DFC. Eric William. F/O. 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. 623 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. 22nd 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 263973 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. 623 Squadron Royal Air Force? There are:2000 items tagged No. 623 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. F/O. Eric William "Hoot" Gibson DFC. 115 Squadron My father initially joined the Australian Army in 1940, but decided he wanted to fly to war instead of walking, so joined the RAAF in early 1941. His initial training was in Tasmania and then advanced training in Canada. He was then posted to 623 Sqn at Downham Market where he only completed 2 gardening sorties on Stirlings before it was disbanded. He was then transferred to 115 Squadron at Witchford where he completed his tour of 30 operations in June 1944. His log book records at least two attacks by enemy night fighters and another is confirmed by gunners reports. At the end of his tour, he was posted to several training units as a flying instructor and managed to survive them as well. He was awarded the DFC in 1944. Whilst he didn't speak much about the war on his return or in later years, he did comment about two particular raids to Nuremberg and Leipzig which were particularly costly to Bomber Command. He also mentioned another occasion where he was forced to land at Downham Market as there was an enemy fighter in the circuit at Witchford. This fighter was responsible for the destruction of two of 115 Squadron's returning aircraft. The only other trip he mentioned was one where, on their return to base, they found an incendiary bomb lodged in the engine housing of the Lancaster, obviously dropped from an aircraft above. Luckily, it hadn't ignited. I still have the nose weight from that bomb with the date 1943 cast into it. The bomb had been defused by armourers and the nose weight given to Dad's Canadian tail gunner who surprised Dad with it when my parents visited him in Canada. Dad returned to Australia in 1945 where he was a power station control room supervisor until retirement. He died in 1999 at the age of 83 years of age. He never flew an aircraft again on his return to Australia but retained a keen interest in aviation. I recall him saying that when he was a young lad, he had seen Charles Kingsford Smith's aircraft in western Victoria when it was doing joy rides to help finance his exploits. Malcolm Gibson 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.