RAF Transport Command

A Pictorial History

Keith Wilson

• Publisher: Amberley Publishing
• Year: 2017
• eBook ISBN: 9781445665993
• Edition: 0
• Topic: Technology & Engineering
• Subtopic: Military & Maritime History
• Index: Technology & Engineering

When RAF Transport Command was created in March 1943, it was formed by the renaming of Ferry Command. The delivery of aircraft from manufacturers to operational units had been ongoing since the start of the Second World War; but was significantly intensified by the supply of American machines flown across the Atlantic from 1940. Later, Transport Command took over the role of dropping paratroops. It even undertook the ferrying of mail from the UK to troops fighting across Europe, using specially modified Spitfires and Hurricanes for the role. After 1945 and the conclusion of the Second World War, Transport Command grew considerably in size. In 1948, it was at the forefront of the Berlin Airlift. It would later serve the RAF particularly well during the Suez Crisis, the Malayan Emergency, and the nuclear trial on Christmas Island. This book covers a pictorial history of Transport Command operations from 1943 through to 1967, when RAF Transport Command was renamed Support Command. Illustrated with images from the Air Historical Branch – many of which have never previously been published.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Introduction
• The War Years (1943–45)
• Returning the Troops
• Post-War Reorganisation (1945–47)
• Operation Plainfare – The Berlin Airlift
• Korea, Malaya and the ‘Japan Shuttle’ (1950–54)
• Entering the Jet Transport Age (1955–59)
• Air Mobility (1960–64)
• Andover, Belfast and VC10 (1965–67)
• Bibliography