The RAF was Britain's weapon of attrition, and flying a fighter plane was the way her sons could serve her best at this point in the war.

The British RAF in the Middle East was equipped with Rolls-Royce Armoured Cars and Morris tenders.

In September 1940 a section of the No. 2 Squadron RAF Regiment Company was detached to General Wavell ’ s ground forces during the first offensive against the Italians in Egypt.

An upgraded version with active radar seeker, called Active Sky Flash was proposed by BAe and Thomson-CSF, but did not receive funding because the RAF opted for other missiles.

The Avro Vulcan was part of the RAF V bomber force

This new design was licensed by the British, who produced ball point pens for RAF aircrew as the Biro ; they found they worked much better than fountain pens at high altitude, the latter being prone to ink-leakage in the decreased atmospheric pressure.

Carl Meinhof was the great-uncle ( the brother of the grandfather ) of Ulrike Meinhof, a founding member of the German Red Army Faction ( RAF ), a left-wing militant group, which operated in West Germany in 1970s and 1980s.

In the early 1960s, the UK was withdrawing its military presence from the Indian Ocean area, not including the base at RAF Gan to the north of Diego Garcia in the Maldives ( which remained open until 1976 ), and agreed to permit the US to establish a Naval Communication Station on one of its island territories there.

Much of this combat was centered around the strategic bombing campaigns of the RAF and the USAAF.

Significant individual contributions to the war effort by Scots included the invention of radar by Robert Watson-Watt, which was invaluable in the Battle of Britain, as was the leadership at RAF Fighter Command of Air Chief Marshal Hugh Dowding.

In the Zionist movement the moderate Pro-British ( and British citizen ) Weizmann, whose son died flying in the RAF, was undermined by Britain's anti-Zionist policies.

Similarly, a bomber wing was a Kampfgeschwader ( KG ), a night fighter wing was a Nachtjagdgeschwader ( NJG ), a dive-bomber wing was a Stukageschwader ( StG ), and units equivalent to those in RAF Coastal Command, with specific responsibilities for coastal patrols and search and rescue duties, were Küstenfliegergruppen ( Kü. Fl.

It was not until the concluding months of 1943 that the only realized attempt to build a " true four engined " version of the A-series He 177, the He 177B emerged with only three airworthy prototypes produced by early 1944, some three years after the first flights of the Avro Lancaster prototypes, the most commonly encountered RAF bomber pounding Germany on strategic night raids from 1942 to the end of the war in Europe.

Deliveries of new aircraft were insufficient to meet the drain on resources ; the Luftwaffe, unlike the RAF, was failing to expand its pilot and aircraft numbers.

He was in time for the bombing of Germany, serving on the Handley Page Halifax with No. 76 Squadron RAF, initially at RAF Breighton and then at RAF Holme-on-Spalding Moor.

In World War II, he volunteered for all services when the war broke out ( the RAF was his first choice owing to the influence of his father's experience ), but was initially rejected because of his father's nationality.

He went on to join Robert Atkin's Shakespearean company in Regent's Park, London, until he was called up for service in the RAF.

He was appearing in a Shakespearean play in doublet and hose in the open-air theatre in London's Hyde Park when two RAF MPs marched on stage and arrested him for desertion.

A radome at RAF Menwith Hill, a site with satellite downlink capabilities believed to be used by ECHELON.

On 29 July 1940, manufacturers Albright & Wilson of Oldbury demonstrated to the RAF how their white phosphorus could be used to ignite incendiary bombs.

The RAF described itself as a communist and anti-imperialist " urban guerrilla " group engaged in armed resistance against what they deemed to be a fascist state.

Although Meinhof was not considered to be a leader of the RAF at any time, her involvement in Baader's escape from jail in 1970 and her well-known status as a German journalist led to her name becoming attached to it.

To weaken the organization further the government declared that some RAF inmates would be released if the RAF refrained from violent attacks in the future.

The capture, rather than sinking, of U-570 – the only ship to be captured by an aircraft – on 27 August 1941 by a Lockheed Hudson from RAF Coastal Command was important for determining the fighting capacity of U-boats, although her crew destroyed the Enigma and cipher information.

The American weapons supplied under Project E were not available for the RAF to use as part of the UK's national nuclear deterrent ; only British-owned weapons could be used for that purpose.

RAF Bomber Command attrition attacks against air defense targets in Warsaw Pact and European Russia alone by the V-Force ( in prosecuting their initial attacks upon the Soviet Union ) would be decisive in ensuring that NATO and SAC follow-on forces attacks would be successful in achieving the destruction of Soviet and Warsaw Pact targets.

A private airstrip at what used to be RAF Knettishall

A Long barrow site believed to be from the Beaker people was flattened to make way for RAF Charmy Down.

The terms of the base rights granted for Bermuda also included that the airfield constructed by the US would be used jointly with the Royal Air Force ( RAF ).

She and other RAF members attempted to kidnap her children so that they could be sent to a camp for Palestinian orphans and educated there according to her desires ; however, the twins were intercepted in Sicily and returned to their father, in part due to the intervention of Stefan Aust.

He agreed but later became suspicious that the woman might be involved with the RAF and eventually decided to call the police.

On 22 January, the RAF director of bomber operations, Air Commodore Sydney Bufton, sent a memo to the Deputy Chief of the Air Staff, Air Marshal Sir Norman Bottomley, suggesting that what appeared to be a coordinated air attack by the RAF to aid the current Soviet offensive would have a detrimental effect on German morale.

The American services, with the exception of the U. S. Navy, were not generally in the habit of giving aircraft names, and many British-chosen names would later be adopted ; e. g. the North American P-51 Mustang began life as the North American Mustang Mk. I with the RAF.

Sometimes a named RAF version of an aircraft would be cancelled with the naval version entering service without a corresponding land-based name, e. g. Hawker Sea Fury, de Havilland Sea Vixen.

Later, Pike says that on joining the RAF he will be " the second of the few "; a reference to Howard's The First of the Few.

The next month, the first missile to be removed from an operational unit and sent to Vandenberg AFB for confidence firing arrived from a Thor IRBM squadron ( 98th RAF Strategic Missile Squadron ) in the United Kingdom.

The first official intimation that RAF Dumfries was to be built was made in late 1938.

The United States War Department felt the British Bomb Disposal experience could be a valuable asset, based on reports from U. S. Army, Navy, and Marine Corps observers at RAF Melksham in Wiltshire, England in 1940.

In cases where the coast guard is primarily concerned with coordinating rather than executing rescue operations, lifeboats are often provided by civilian voluntary organizations, such as the Royal National Lifeboat Institution in the United Kingdom, whilst aircraft may be provided by the countries ' armed forces, such as Sea Kings operated by the RAF and Royal Navy in addition to any of the coast guard's own assets.

However, CH3 insists that the Battle of Britain is crucial all the same because to win the war the RAF must not just avoid losing, it must show that the Luftwaffe can be beaten.

The Nazis bombed Britain, so the RAF retaliated and shot them all down.

Subsequently with the Japanese advance down the Malay Peninsula, the Army and RAF codebreakers went to the Wireless Experimental Centre in Delhi, India.

American jeeps, which were able to deal with the harsh desert terrain better than other transport, were cut down, adapted and fitted with obsolete RAF machine guns.

25 Lancasters of No. 617 Squadron RAF then dropped their Tallboys with great accuracy ; one pierced the roof of the tunnel, brought down a huge quantity of rock and soil, and blocked the tunnel for a considerable period, badly delaying the Panzer IVs.

The majority of the Polish soldiers and some Polish civilians who failed to evacuate from France after the German victory in 1940 as well as one Polish pilot shot down over France, one of many Polish pilots flying for RAF, did join the French Résistance.

The RAF credited Brown with shooting down the Red Baron, but it is now generally agreed that the bullet that hit Richthofen was fired by someone on the ground.

A full list of the aircraft the Red Baron was credited with shooting down was published as early as 1958 — with documented RFC / RAF squadron details, aircraft serial numbers, and the identities of Allied airmen killed or captured — 73 of the 80 are listed as matching recorded British losses.

Incidental to the story of discovery of the Lady Be Good is the 2012 discovery of a British RAF P40 Kittyhawk that went down in June of 1942.

The ASV radar introduced by RAF Coastal Command was designed to track down submarines and ships by displaying the signal from two antennas side by side and allowing the operator to compare their relative strength.

The Germans — who had been expecting resupply efforts — had moved five flak batteries into the area specifically to attack these flights and as the RAF came into view they succeeded in shooting down 10 aircraft.

The ten year rule ( that there would be no major war for ten years ) laid down in 1919 ensured the RAF was to be reduced by 50 percent, which downsized the maritime squadrons on the RAF to just five percent of its November 1918 strength.

At the outbreak of World War II, Howard volunteered for the RAF and British Army, but was turned down by both.

Young then left the baracks and walked down the road to the RAF base and asked to join.

* A RAF Panavia Tornado is brought down by " friendly fire " by a US Patriot missile battery.

The younger one, Flight Lt Michael Oser Weizmann ( d. 1942, aged twenty-five ), serving as a pilot in the British No. 502 Squadron RAF, was killed when his plane was shot down over the Bay of Biscay.

During the air battle over Mersa Matruh Sergente Maggiore Davide Colauzzi and Sergente Mario Turchi from 368 < sup > a </ sup > Squadriglia, while escorting SM. 79 bombers, shot down the Hurricanes of 33 Squadron that were flown by 26-year-old Canadian Flying Officer Edmond Kidder Leveille ( RAF no.

Six days later ( on 28 May according to other sources ) the Fiat CR. 42s, in what was to prove the final air-to-air combat of the brief campaign, intercepted RAF Blenheims, claiming two No. 94 Sqn Gladiators, with the loss of one CR. 42 shot down by a Gladiator flown by Wg Cdr Wightman, close to Khan Nuqta.

The success the Luftwaffe was having in rapidly wearing down the RAF was squandered, as the civilians being hit were far less critical than the airfields and radar stations that were now ignored.

* 6 September-Just days after the start of the war, in what was dubbed the Battle of Barking Creek, three RAF Spitfires from 74 Squadron shot down two Hurricanes from the RAF's 56 Squadron, killing one of the pilots.

* 21 May-A Bristol Blenheim L9325 of No. 18 Squadron RAF was shot down by RAF Hurricane and crashed near Arras, France.

* 22 May-A Bristol Blenheim L9266 of No. 59 Squadron RAF was shot down by RAF Spitfire and crashed near Fricourt, France.