Description
Title: Strike and Strike Again – 455 Squadron RAAF, 1944 – 45
Author: Gordon, Ian
Condition: Mint
Edition: 2nd Edition
Publication Date: 2015
ISBN: 9780994355881
Cover: Hard Cover without Dust Jacket – 244 pages
Comments: 455 Squadron RAAF was the sole Australian strike squadron in RAF Coastal Command, and flew the formidable Bristol Beaufighter, armed with 20 mm cannon, bombs and rockets. A salvo of eight of these rockets could smash through a large merchant ship and send it to the bottom. As part of the devastating strike wings of Coastal Command, 455 Squadron attacked German shipping off Holland and Denmark, and in Norwegian fiords. Here some of the fiercest battles were fought, the strike squadrons diving into concentrated automatic flak, among defending Focke-Wulfs and over merciless freezing waters. The deep fiords, with precipitous rocky sides, were unforgiving; precise flying was necessary for survival.
455 Squadron, ‘the Viking Boys’, mastered some of the most demanding and perilous operational flying of the war. This history describes the men who flew, the ground crews who gave unstinting support, and includes full appendices of personnel, aircraft on strength and operations.
