RAF AIR 27 Air Ministry Operations Record Books

Sometimes it comes as a bit of a surprise to us when we find that famous people, as well as our own past family, carried out extraordinary things in World War II. Some of the airmen may have told their tales, while others remained silent. In the case of Roald Dahl, he wrote about a number of his experiences in his book Going Solo, including his crash landing on arrival at a new squadron in North Africa. Now, however, we can read how the official RAF Operations Record Book recounted this mishap and how he was badly burned in the accident.

You can read more about Roald Dahl in the Operations Record Books here.

The Battle of Britain (10 July - 31 October 1940) saw war-time prime minister Winston Churchill give the name “The Few” to the pilots who defended these islands from the Nazis after France had fallen. Of these pilots, any that achieved five or more victories to their name were then referred to as being an Ace. There is an even smaller cohort of these aviators that were unofficially referred to as being an Ace in a day, just four!

Scotsman Archie McKellar, his fellow Brit Ronald Hamlyn, the New Zealander Brian Carbury and Polish pilot Antoni Głowacki all had the unusual distinction of notching up five enemy aircraft destroyed in one day. In our article on finding Squadron Leader Archie McKellar in the ORBs, we note the unemotional military language that records for posterity the day when Squadron Leader McKellar obtained his five victories in one day: “The next patrol... was remarkable for the success of S/L McKellar.”

Find out more about how we used the ORBs to discover the story of our Ace in a Day here .

On the 16th May 1943 a flight of Lancasters, modified to carry the legendary bouncing bombs created by Barnes Wallis, took off from RAF Scampton in Operation Chastise. Their targets were the Ruhr dams in Germany and they were a newly formed No 617 Squadron under the command of a young pilot named Guy Gibson.

Wing Commander Gibson DSO and Bar, DFC and Bar at age 24 had already flown 172 sorties by this time. On the 16th May 1943, after dropping his bomb, he then flew alongside another aircraft as it attacked, machine gunning the defences to allow the other Lancaster to attack undisturbed. Gibson then carried on to the Eder dam to indicate the target to other crews for them to bomb and stayed in the zone to assess the results. For this bravery he and two others received the Victoria Cross.

We found the Dambusters mission in the RAF ORBs, and you can read our article on these records of the legendary mission and its young leader, Wing Commander Guy Gibson, here.