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Flight Lieutenant Bill Cleland DSO DFC No Photo Available Having qualified as a Pilot he was posted to 12 Sqn in early 1944 before transferring to 156 Pathfinder Squadron. By the end of the war he had completed 77 Ops in Lancasters.
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Items Signed by Flight Lieutenant Bill Cleland DSO DFC |
Packs with at least one item featuring the signature of Flight Lieutenant Bill Cleland DSO DFC |
| Squadrons for : Flight Lieutenant Bill Cleland DSO DFC | ||
| A list of all squadrons known to have been served with by Flight Lieutenant Bill Cleland DSO DFC. A profile page is available by clicking the squadron name. | ||
| Squadron | Info | |
Country : UK Founded : 14th February 1915 Leads the field | No.12 Sqn RAF Full profile not yet available. | |
Country : UK Founded : 12th October 1918 Fate : Disbanded 25th September 1945 Pathfinder Squadron We light the way | No.156 Sqn RAF Formed on 12th October 1918, the squadron flew DH9 aircraft, but did not become fully operative, and was disbanded on 9th December 1918. The squadron reformed on 14th February 1942, with Wellington aircraft, which it used until these were replaced with Lancasters in January 1943. The squadron was disbanded on 25th September 1945. | |
| Aircraft for : Flight Lieutenant Bill Cleland DSO DFC | |||
| A list of all aircraft associated with Flight Lieutenant Bill Cleland DSO DFC. A profile page including a list of all art prints for the aircraft is available by clicking the aircraft name. | |||
| Squadron | Info | ||
Manufacturer : Avro Production Began : 1942 Retired : 1963 Number Built : 7377 | Lancaster The Avro Lancaster arose from the avro Manchester and the first prototype Lancaster was a converted Manchester with four engines. The Lancaster was first flown in January 1941, and started operations in March 1942. By March 1945 The Royal Air Force had 56 squadrons of Lancasters with the first squadron equipped being No.44 Squadron. During World War Two the Avro Lancaster flew 156,000 sorties and dropped 618,378 tonnes of bombs between 1942 and 1945. Lancaster Bomberss took part in the devastating round-the-clock raids on Hamburg during Air Marshall Harris' Operation Gomorrah in July 1943. Just 35 Lancasters completed more than 100 successful operations each, and 3,249 were lost in action. The most successful survivor completed 139 operations, and the Lancaster was scrapped after the war in 1947. A few Lancasters were converted into tankers and the two tanker aircraft were joined by another converted Lancaster and were used in the Berlin Airlift, achieving 757 tanker sorties. A famous Lancaster bombing raid was the 1943 mission, codenamed Operation Chastise, to destroy the dams of the Ruhr Valley. The operation was carried out by 617 Squadron in modified Mk IIIs carrying special drum shaped bouncing bombs designed by Barnes Wallis. Also famous was a series of Lancaster attacks using Tallboy bombs against the German battleship Tirpitz, which first disabled and later sank the ship. The Lancaster bomber was the basis of the new Avro Lincoln bomber, initially known as the Lancaster IV and Lancaster V. (Becoming Lincoln B1 and B2 respectively.) Their Lancastrian airliner was also based on the Lancaster but was not very successful. Other developments were the Avro York and the successful Shackleton which continued in airborne early warning service up to 1992. | ||
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