![Personnel of 415 Squadron, RCAF, with one of the unit's Handley-Page Halifax heavy bombers, East-Moor, Yorkshire, England 1944-1945 - AN19790128-002](/web/20061029142423im_/http://www.warmuseum.ca/cwm/newspapers/canadawar/images/royalairforce_min.gif)
Personnel of 415 Squadron, RCAF, with one of the unit's Handley-Page Halifax
heavy bombers, East-Moor, Yorkshire, England 1944-1945 |
The Canadian Armed Forces: The Royal Canadian Air Force (RCAF)
The ran the
vital British Commonwealth Air Training Plan, but
it also sent nearly 94,000 personnel overseas, and played a major
role in the Battle of the Atlantic. More than half of its wartime
aircrew served in
,
but there were also 48
overseas; they made their most significant contributions in the
high-intensity operations over North-West Europe. Canadian bomber
formed no. 6 ,
Bomber Command, of the . Fighter
served in Canadian , especially in no. 83 ,
2nd Tactical
, for the Normandy invasion and the liberation
of Europe. No. 417 flew
fighters in North Africa and the
Mediterranean, while three bomber operated from North
Africa.
Two transport and a
maritime patrol were
in the South East Asia . 51
served in North America,
although a number of these later went overseas. Many were part of
the antisubmarine campaign in the Atlantic, flying from bases on the
East Coast, in Newfoundland (not yet then a part of Canada) or
Iceland. Both fighter and maritime patrol flew in the
Aleutians campaign of 1942-1943.
The wartime total enlistment of the was nearly 250,000 men
and women. It had had a meagre pre-war regular strength of 3,048,
with 270 aircraft of 23 types, nearly all of them already obsolete.
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