Virtual
War Memorial
Australia

No. 525 Squadron (RAF) WW2

No. 525 Squadron (RAF) is included on this site as on of the very many RAF Squadrons to which large numbers of RAAF personnel, trained under the Empire Air Training Scheme in Australia, Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe) Canada and the Unitd Kingdom, were assigned.  They progressed through the training continuum and in a minority of cases found themselves in RAAF 'Article XV Squadrons'.  The vast majority were posted as individual reinforcements, known as 'odd bods', to RAF units , along the way, 'crewing up, with men with whom they would live train, fight and often die. 

No. 525 Squadron was formed on 1 September 1943 at RAF Weston Zoyland to operate the Vickers Warwick, a dervative of the Vickers Wellington medium bomber, adapted for the transport role.

Initially operating routes from England to Gibraltar and North Africa, the Warwick was found wanting in the role and they were withdrawn in 1944.  The Warwick was replaced with the ubiquitous Douglas Dakota C-47 Skytrain.  They also operated one example of the Short Stirling Mark III transport version of the four-engined heavy bomber.

The squadron soon operated on routes throughout Europe and also became mainly manned by Canadian personnel. By the end of the war it was primarily operating routes to India. The Canadians withdrew at the end of the war, but the squadron continued with troop lift flights. On 1 December 1946 the squadron was disbanded at RAF Abingdon, and re-numbered to No. 238 Squadron.

Source: Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No._525_Squadron_RAF (en.wikipedia.org)