About This Unit
No. 98 Squadron (RAF) - RAF Bomber Command / 2nd Tactical Air Force
No. 98 Squadron RAF is included on this site because it was one of many RAF Squadrons to which RAAF personnel were posted during WW2 and in which they lived served and often died in the execution of their duties.
Originally raised in WW1 and disbanded afterwards, No. 98 Squadron was reformed on 17 February 1936 at Abingdon as a day-bomber squadron equipped with the Hawker Hind. In August it moved to Hucknall, transferring from 1 Group to 2 Group and in 1938 was re-equipped with the Fairey Battle light bomber.
World War II
During the first nine months of World War II it served as a reserve squadron and from April–June 1940 was based at Nantes, France, though it flew no combat missions,which was probably just a well because other Battle Squadrons were basically shot out of the sky during the Battle of France. It was not to escape casualties though. In the course of evacuation to England , the Squadron lost 90 of its personnel when the ship RMS Lancastria was bombed and sunk off Saint-Nazaire on 17 June 1940.
After re-assembling at Gatwick in July 1940, the Squadron was attached to Coastal Command and stationed at Kaldadarnes, Iceland for coastal patrol and anti-submarine duties. The Squadron supplemented its Battles with a few Hawker Hurricane fighter aircraft in June 1940 but was disbanded on 15 July 1941. In August 1999, melting ice on a remote glacier on Iceland revealed the wreck of Battle P2330 and its crew, the aircraft having disappeared whilst on a ferry flight from Kaldrarnes on 26 May 1941. The remains of the four airmen on board, two crew and two passengers, were recovered and buried at the Fossvogur War Cemetery in Reykjavik on 27 August 2000.
No. 98 Squadron reformed on 12 September 1942 at RAF West Raynham as a bomber squadron of 2 Group, flying the North American Mitchell II. Relocating to Foulsham in mid-October, the Squadron continued training on the Mitchell, being declared operational on 8 December 1942, at first flying Air Sea Rescue (ASR) missions.
On 22 January 1943 the Squadron made its first attack on the enemy, when six Mitchells from 98 Squadron and six from No. 180 Squadron (also flying its first combat mission, with an escort of Mustang fighters from 169 Squadron, attacked oil installations at Terneuzen, Belgium. One 98 Squadron Mitchell was shot down by German anti-aircraft fire while two of 180 Squadron's aircraft together with two 169 Squadron Mustangs were shot down by Focke-Wulf Fw 190 fighters. Following this inauspicious debut, 98 Squadron returned to ASR missions while modifications were made to the Mitchell's defensive gun turrets, the Squadron returning to combat on 13 May when six aircraft attacked railway marshalling yards at Boulogne.
In August 1943 the Squadron moved to Dunsfold to take part in pre-invasion attacks on Northern France and on V1 flying bomb launching sites in the Pas-de-Calais. After the Normandy landings the Squadron operated in close support of the advancing Allied armies, and from October 1944 was based at Melsbroek near Brussels, Belgium, moving to Achmer, near Osnabrück, Germany, just days prior to VE Day. It remained in Germany after war's end as part of the Forces of Occupation.
Compiled by Steve Larkins 22 Dec 2023
Redacted from various sources:
Wikipedia - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No._98_Squadron_RAF (en.wikipedia.org)
"No. 98 Squadron (RAF) during the Second World War". History of War.org