Combat Report Help - 214 Sqn RAF - Feb 1943

[Nick Beale]

Originally Posted by RSwank

T.E. is probably Twin Engine.

M A may be a misread of H A ? They were likely seeing a twin engine Messerschmitt Bf-110 night fighter.

TE is always "twin-engined" in the RAF papers I have seen (and SE is single-engined). "MA" I'd guess should be EA, standard abbreviation for "enemy aircraft".

[Frank Olynyk]

Michael,
You might also locate the 214 Sqn ORB for Feb in AIR 27, and download the two parts, Form 540 and Form 541. These should have some of the details from the combat report.

Enjoy!

Frank.

[Shiny1019]

Sorry for the delayed reply but thank you very much for the help Gents.

The mis-read of the abbreviations are the most likely and make perfect sense, I take it the twin engine fits with the type of aircraft they were up against?

Frank I will definitely get onto that download now

Thanks again everyone.

Michael

[RSwank]

Sgt R. R. Shipley was on Sterling BF445 on the night of 14/15 February for the attack on Cologne (Koln). Others on the crew were Ft/Lt B C Wallace, and Sgts Bradley, F R Woodger, Dix, Whitehead and Brookfield. They did release their bombs on the marked target but the pilot was of the opinion (because of the small amount of flak over the marked "target") that they were bombing west of the actual city. They did note "one photo was attempted".

10 planes from 214 Squadron were dispatched, 2 turned back, 2 others did not make it to Cologne but released their bombs elsewhere and the remaining 6 planes bombed Cologne. BF445 took off (UP) at 18:40 and was back (DOWN) at 22:50

[Shiny1019]

Wow!

Thank you so much for that, it's brilliant. Could I ask where you got the detail from? If there's an original document somewhere I'd like to try and get a copy of it for my file.

I'm busy on the national archives website and getting absolutely nowhere.

Thanks again,

Michael

[RSwank]

The information is from the two files Frank mentioned, 540 and 541 reports. You can download them for free (at the moment). You need a sign-on to the archives (also free).

Starting from this page, scroll down toward the bottom:
https://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/...oks-1939-1945/

Enter 214 for the Squadron and 1943 for the start and end dates.

That should get you 28 records.

https://discovery.nationalarchives.g..._dt=SQ&_hb=tna

The two files Frank mentioned would each be for February, 1943.

540 reports are the "Summary of Events" and the 541 reports are "Records of Events".


I did not look at the first few files listed (Appendices Y........) which seem to contain photos among other things. I wonder if their "attempted photo" is in the file. There may be some other things of interest in them also.

[Shiny1019]

Thank you so much, I had managed to find the ones with the photos but completely missed those ones. I have them now.

Thanks again for the help.

Michael