49 Squadron: RAF Bomber Command Squadron Profiles

Chris Ward's Bomber Command Squadron Profiles series continues with this volume, focussing on 49 Squadron. Lavishly illustrated and with comprehensive operational details, this is a 'must read' for anyone interested in the wartime history of the squadron and its personnel.

49 Squadron was one of six front-line Hampden units serving with 5 Group at the outbreak of war. It was in action against the enemy on the day that war was declared, and apart from a brief spell on attachment to Coastal Command between the 26th of January and 19th of March 1940, spent its entire career in Bomber Command operating under the banner of 5 Group. Operations during the first two years and nine months of WWII were carried out in the trusty but increasingly obsolete twin-engine Hampden, a type which rendered magnificent service and in which 49 Squadron crews took part in the first mining operations in April 1940, the first strategic bombing operations over Germany in May and the attacks on invasion barges assembling in ports along the occupied coast as the Battle of Britain drew to a close in the late summer and autumn. At the limit of its range, the Hampden took 49 squadron crews to Berlin on many occasions, often arriving back over England flying on little more than fumes. The squadron took part in the infamous "Channel Dash" episode on the 12th of February 1942, during which the German fleet escaped from its long-time lodgings at Brest and passed under the noses of the British defences, through the English Channel and on to German ports. A massive daylight commitment of aircraft by Bomber and Coastal Commands and the Fleet Air Arm failed to halt the vessels' progress and four 49 Squadron Hampdens were among fifteen aircraft lost.

The great hope was the Avro Manchester, the type intended to replace the Hampden, but its engine design was fatally flawed and the type was approaching the end of its brief operational career by the time that 49 Squadron converted in the early summer of 1942. It was not a happy two months of operations, which included the three "Thousand Bomber Raids on Cologne, Essen and Bremen, the last-mentioned bringing down the curtain on the Manchester's ill-fated career. Thereafter, 49 Squadron went to war in Lancasters and played a major role in the campaigns of 1943 against the Ruhr, Hamburg and Berlin, the last mentioned continuing until the spring of 1944. 5 Group gained independence from Bomber Command's main force in April 1944 and remained at the forefront of operations. pre-invasion against railways and coastal defences and post-invasion in tactical support of ground forces and in on-going campaigns against railways, V-Weapons and oil. The squadron suffered its heaviest loss on Midsummer's Night 1944, when losing six crews, including that of its commanding officer, in an attack on a synthetic oil refinery at Wesseling near Cologne. From late summer onwards, the squadron was involved in a second Ruhr campaign and in 1945 took part in frequent attacks on the Dortmund-Ems and Mittelland canals, which resulted in their destruction.

49 Squadron sustained consistently fewer casualties than most squadrons and set an example of excellence that few other squadrons matched and, certainly, none surpassed.