No. 216 Group RAF

No. 216 (Ferry) Group was a command of the Royal Air Force (RAF) during World War II established on May 21, 1942. The group was renamed No. 216 (Air Transport and Ferry) Group on September 9, 1942 and placed under the command of Air Commodore Whitney Straight the following day.^[1]

No. 216 Group became a major sub-command of the Mediterranean Air Command that was created at the Casablanca Conference in January of 1943.^[2][3] On March 25, 1943, No. 216 Group also became a sub-command of the newly created Transport Command, an umbrella organization of all British transport units worldwide under the command of Air Chief Marshal Sir Frederick Bowhill. The group was sometimes aided by British Overseas Airways Corporation in the receiving, preparing, and dispatching of aircraft reinforcements into the North African and Mediterranean Theater of Operations. The components of No. 216 Group at the time of the Allied invasion of Sicily (Operation Husky) on July 10, 1943 are indicated below.^[4]

No. 216 (Air Transport and Ferry) Group
Air Commodore Whitney Straight
Order of Battle, July 10, 1943

Units	Aircraft
No. 17 Squadron (SAAF)	Junkers 52
No. 28 Squadron (SAAF)	Anson
No. 117 Squadron (RAF)	Hudson
No. 173 Squadron (RAF)	Lodestar, Proctor, Hurricane
No. 216 Squadron (RAF)	C-47 Dakota
No. 230 Squadron (RAF)	Sunderland
No. 267 Squadron (RAF)	Hudson

No. 216 (Air Transport and Ferry) Group was disbanded on October 26, 1946.^[5]

Citations

1. ^ http://www.rafweb.org/Grp07.htm Royal Air Force Web
2. ^ Craven, Wesley F. and James L. Cate. The Army Air Forces in World War II, Volume 2, Chicago, Illinois: Chicago University Press, 1949 (Reprinted 1983, ISBN 0-912799-03-X).
3. ^ Army Air Forces Historical Office Headquarters, Participation of the Ninth & Twelfth Air Forces in the Sicilian Campaign, Army Air Forces Historical Study No. 37, Maxwell Air Force Base, Alabama, 1945.
4. ^ Richards, D. and H. Saunders, The Royal Air Force 1939-1945 (Volume 2, HMSO, 1953).
5. ^ http://www.rafweb.org/Grp07.htm Royal Air Force Web

References

• Craven, Wesley F. and James L. Cate. The Army Air Forces in World War II, Volume 2, Chicago, Illinois: Chicago University Press, 1949 (Reprinted 1983, ISBN 0-912799-03-X).
• Richards, D. and H. Saunders, The Royal Air Force 1939-1945 (Volume 2, HMSO, 1953).
• Howe, George F., Northwest Africa: Seizing the Initiative in the West, Center of Military History, Washington, DC., 1991.
• Army Air Forces Historical Office Headquarters, Participation of the Ninth & Twelfth Air Forces in the Sicilian Campaign, Army Air Forces Historical Study No. 37, Maxwell Air Force Base, Alabama, 1945.
• Royal Air Force Web.