426 Transport Training Squadron

Second World War No. 426 Squadron RCAF was created during the Second World War as a result of the British Commonwealth Air Training Plan to supply aircrew for the war in Europe. It first formed at RAF Dishforth, England on 15 October 1942, with Vickers Wellington Mk IIIs and Mk Xs. Peacetime The squadron was disbanded on January 1, 1946. It reformed at RCAF Station Dartmouth on August 1, 1946, as a transport squadron. They moved to RCAF Station Lachine, Quebec, in March 1947, On March 8, 1948, a North Star of the squadron was used to make 426 Squadron's first flight to the Arctic with a flight from Dorval, Quebec, to Lansdowne House by way of Rockliffe, Resolute, and Trout Lake. Later, in January 1949, a 426 Squadron North Star made Canada's first coast-to-coast non-stop flight. Korean War During the Korean War, between 1950 and 1952, the squadron transported supplies and troops to Japan in support of United Nations operations. In July 1950, a few days after the start of the war, 426 Squadron was detached to McChord Air Force Base in Washington where it came under the operational control of the Military Air Transport Service of the United States. A typical Korean Air Lift route for 426 Squadron aeroplanes was a physically and mentally demanding fifty-hour round trip flight from McChord to Japan and back with stops at Elmendorf Air Force Base (Alaska), Shemya (Aleutian Islands), Handed and Misawa Air Base (Japan). Post-Korean War to present day On September 1, 1959, the squadron was moved to Trenton, Ontario. It was moved to Saint-Hubert in January 1962. It was disbanded at Saint-Hubert on 1 September of that year. It reformed again as 426 Transport Training Squadron on May 3, 1971, at Uplands. The squadron moved to Trenton in August 1971 where it remains today, conducting training on the CC-130 Hercules. The squadron has carried out many tasks since the end of Korean War, including casualty evacuations, Royal tours and other VIP transport, and United Nations air lift operations. Thunderbird has worked in many places: the Arctic, the Middle East and Europe, the Congo and Japan. Aircraft ==Battle honours==

The squadron has been awarded a number of battle honours during its operational history: • English Channel and North Sea 1943 • Baltic 1944–1945 • Fortress Europe 1943–1944 • France and Germany 1944–1945 • Biscay Ports 1943–1944 • Ruhr 1943–1945 • Berlin 1943–1944 • German Ports 1943–1945 • Normandy 1944 • Rhine • Biscay 1943 ==Activities related to the squadron==

During one attack in Belgium during the Second World War, one Halifax (serial LW682) crashed near Geraardsbergen. The entire crew perished. The remains of only five airmen, four Canadians and one British were recovered by the German authorities; the corpses of three other crewmen could not be retrieved because it had crashed in the boggy ground near the Dender river. In the late 1990s a group of Canadian and Belgian volunteers recovered the remains of the three Canadian airmen and brought them to Canada. They were later interred with their crewmates in Geraardsbergen Communal Cemetery. A great deal of the recovered Halifax was smelted into ingots and have since been used for memorials, including the ceiling of the Bomber Command Memorial in London, UK. Former members of the 426 Squadron have held biennial Thunderbird veteran reunions since the end of the Second World War. In recognition of his bravery, a new building of RAF Linton-on-Ouse was named after Flight Sergeant Frederick Stuart. The place was visited by relatives of the airman, amongst them, his daughter, whom he wasn't ever able to meet because he was shot down and killed in December 1943, one month before his child's birth. ==Notes and references==

;Notes ;Bibliography • Halley, James J. The Squadrons of the Royal Air Force & Commonwealth 1918–1988. Tonbridge, Kent, UK: Air Britain (Historians) Ltd., 1988. . • Jefford, C.G. RAF Squadrons, a Comprehensive record of the Movement and Equipment of all RAF Squadrons and their Antecedents since 1912. Shropshire, UK: Airlife Publishing, 1988 (second edition 2001). . • Motiuk, Laurence. Thunderbirds at War: Diary of a Bomber Squadron. Nepean, Ontario, Canada: Larmot Associates, 1998. . • Moyes, Philip J.R. Bomber Squadrons of the RAF and their Aircraft. London: Macdonald and Jane's (Publishers) Ltd., 1964 (2nd edition 1976). . ==External links==