A History of the RAF Servicing Commandos

Ref: 4865

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{detailed description}On 22 January 1942 Lord Louis Mountbatten of Burma, as Commodore Combined Operations, recommended that a number of Servicing Commandos should be created within the RAF. In due course, twelve units were formed in the United Kingdom, together with a further three units in the Middle East Command. They comprised a total of some 2,400 officers, NCOs and other ranks, mostly volunteers, and all of them skilled aircraft tradesmen capable of working on all types of aircraft to keep them flying under all possible conditions.
These Commando Units were trained on similar lines to the Army and Royal Marine Commandos. Their prime purpose was to accompany the invasion force, either to make captured enemy airfields serviceable, or to make operational the new airstrips built by the Army Airfield Construction Units. On occasion, three or four squadrons of aircraft were kept serviceable for several days until their own ground crews arrived to take over. A Servicing Commando Unit comprised between 150 and 170 other ranks, with two or three Technical Officers, one appointed as Commanding Officer. It would normally be equipped with about fifteen three-ton trucks, a jeep for the Officers, and two or more motorcycles. Most of the time the men lived like nomads, sleeping under tents, or their own issued bivouac, moving often at short notice. Mobility was the order of the day. All the Units were involved in the major invasion landings, whether going in with the initial invasion forces, or giving active support in other ways to keep the aircraft flying.
The authors, both former members of Servicing Commando units, have drawn on their own experiences, as well as those of colleagues, and official unit histories in the Public Records Office and RAF Museum, to provide a detailed account of the activities of the fifteen operational units.
The book is meticulously documented, tracing the service of these units from France and Italy to North Africa and the Far East. It is also a unique story and will provide a valuable reference source for World War II historians, in particular historians of the Royal Air Force.
{Author / Publisher / Date}by J. P. Kellett and J. Davies
published by Airlife 1989 1st edn. 156pp illustrated, index 18x25
{condition}fine inc. d/j
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