New blog about RAF 238 Squadron

[Larry]

238 Sqn was reformed as a Transport Command on 1st December 1944 at RAF Merryfield. Originally to have Albermarles it received Dakota Mk III and Mk IVs and was tasked with supporting the British Pacific Fleet in Australia. The whole unit flew together to Australia in Feb 1945, via Istres, South of France, then Castel Benito in Libya, El Adem, Libya, then Tel Aviv in Palestine, Shaibah in the Gulf, then on to Karachi then Mauripur in India and finally Comilla in Bengal. I say 'finally' as 238 Sqn found that their journey to Australia had been disrupted by the need for 238 Sqn to support the 14th Army in its offensive.

One Dakota KN251 (with my dad on board!) crashed on take off at Castel Benito after failing to get airborne, as it was too heavily overloaded. It went through wire at the end of the runway and caught fire and so was written off. My dad actually went back in to the aircraft to get his kit and then attempted to put out the fire in one engine with a fire extinguisher until the fire crash tender arrived!

The attached photo shows one Dak that was hit by a Japanese shellfire up country at Meiktila.

The 'experience' of stopping off in India nearly killed my dad as he got dysentery but luckily after leaving 14 BGH, (British General Hospital), he was able to re-join his Sqn when they left for Australia at the beginning of July 1945 and flew in Dakota IVs (with overload tanks) from Comilla to Colombo in Ceylon (12 hours airborne) and then Colombo to Cocos Islands (17 hours in the air). After reassuringly finding these islands the Sqn later set off for Learmouth in Western Australia, which was then a dusty outpost, mostly with tented accommodation.

Incidentally in Burma and Australia 238 Sqn seem to have had no code letters or individual aircraft codes.