Country United Kingdom Role Bomber squadron | Branch Royal Air Force | |
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Active 25 Nov 1943 – 13 Sep 1945 Part of No. 1 Group, RAF Bomber Command Motto(s) Latin: Carpe Diem
(Translation: "Seize the opportunity" or "Pluck the day") | ||
No. 576 Squadron RAF was a Royal Air Force Second World War heavy bomber squadron.
Contents
History
No. 576 Squadron was formed on 25 November 1943 from 'C' Flight of 103 squadron at RAF Elsham Wolds in Lincolnshire. It started operations in the night of 2/3 December 1943, when seven Avro Lancasters were sent out to bomb Berlin. Eleven months later 576 Squadron moved to RAF Fiskerton, a little way outside Lincoln. During its brief period of existence 576 Squadron operated only one type of aircraft, the Avro Lancaster four-engined heavy bomber. It carried out 2,788 operation sorties with the Lancaster, with the loss of 66 aircraft. The last bombs of the squadron were dropped on 25 April 1945, when 23 of the squadrons aircraft bombed Berchtesgaden; its last operational mission was a food dropping to the starving Dutch people in Rotterdam on 7 May 1945. 576 Squadron was disbanded at Fiskerton on 13 September 1945.
Notable aircraft
Four of the Lancasters that flew with 576 squadron managed to survive one hundred operations or more: