RAF Bomber Command 'Y' Reports

[RodM]

Hi Bruce,

the simple answer, unfortunately, is that very few survive. I know that late war Forms Y for 466 Squadron are preserved at the Australian War Memorial in Australia, and researcher Richard Koval has found a small amount of Forms Y for a few RCAF squadrons at the Library and Archives Canada.

Random samples can sometimes be found scattered among various AIR 14 files at The National Archives, Kew, but, I, for one, have not found a series.

As you are probably aware, the Form Y was a summary for an individual bomber crew about events witnessed during a sortie. The Forms Y were sent by the squadrons to their Group HQ, where the data was collated in to a Group Form Z, which was then transmitted to Bomber Command HQ and also the BC Operational Research Section. No comprehensive archive of Forms Z appear to have been preserved at The National Archives, but BC ORS copies can be found in the post-war Raid Plot files for selected months between 1943-45 (search the term 'raid plot' in the TNA catalogue under series AIR 14), and a few (possibly misfiled) copies in the Group Summaries of Operations file (search 'group summaries' in the TNA catalogue under series AIR 14).

Cheers

Rod