100 Squadron beaufort's

[Stig Jarlevik]

Very interesting topic

Shores in Bloody Shambles cannot have mistaken 100 Sq RAF with 100 Sq RAAF since the ORB clearly shows that the Australians feel the RAF unit became the Australian one on 28.2.1942. The ORB for 100 Sq RAAF starts on March 1st!
Oddly enough this is not acknowledged in the RAF unit histories I have...

So 100 Sq RAAF ORB is not giving any answers to what happened between Dec 1941 and March 1942.

In spite of the physical record cards found by Geoff, Shores states (on page 57) that six Beauforts arrived to Singapore on Dec 5th (1941) to re-equip 100 Sq and (on page 75)refers to a lone Beaufort, T9540, remaining with 100 Sq on Dec 7th (1941) which I interpret that the other five had continued to Australia before the latter date, that is they stayed a very, very short time!
Since I don't believe Shores has invented his information he must have some records which backs him up on this.

Alex

Where in Bloody Shambles Vol 1 does Chris state the RAF serials and the RAAF serials listed by you? I have not gone through the whole book with a comb and I would very much like to see in what context he says this.

The list he then provides is not entirely correct.
The Australian serials for T9542 was for instance A9-3 (The whole batch T9540 to T9569 was given serials A9-1 to A9-30 in order)

What is interesting to notice is that the record cards clearly indicates the Australian serial numbers were applied much later than actual receiving date just as udf says.

The only explanation I can think of is that five of the Beauforts listed by Alex were in Singapore for such a short time that the compiler of the record cards did not bother to record it. That period away from Oz may have been as short as 4 days only. T9540 is tougher... I can't find any reference to when that one was supposed to have left Singapore. Anyone?

Cheers
Stig