344 Wing - Wing Crest designs from the ranks, India 1945

Randomly stumbled over this bit of ephemera at the Indian Archives and thought it was worth sharing. 344 Wing HQ routine orders in January 1945 petitioned all ranks to submit ideas for a crest. These are the results.

Some information on 344 Wing:

"No.671 Squadron was an airborne operations squadron formed in South East Asia late in 1944 but that was never used in combat... The squadron was to be equipped with eighty Hadrian gliders and ten light aircraft, as were five other similar squadrons. Nos.671, 672 and 673 squadrons formed No.344 Wing, while the remaining three squadrons formed No.343 Wing. All six squadrons had a frustrating time during 1945, spending their time training for airborne operations that never came. None had seen active service when the Japanese surrendered. No.671 Squadron was disbanded on 25 October 1945."​

File ID is NAIDLF01148100.

Martin

 

Some of those are pretty good!!!

 

This is great. My father, W.O. William James Silcock, was a pilot in 673 Squadron (he enlisted in 1942 when he was 18, better than his life underground as a Welsh coal miner since 14). He was in Bikram in January 1945. I have photos of him in the RAF’s Jungle Warfare school in Belgaum, India. And some mountaineering in Kashmir in his “time off”. He brought back a Gurkha kukri, which I still have, along with a taste for spicy food and practiced yoga - quite unusual for post-war Britain.

 

Welcome to the forum Dafydd.

He sounds like an interesting chap - plenty came back from the East with a taste for hot curry and tropical weather (both hard to find in post-war Britain), but there can't have been many who took up yoga.

I have had a quick skim of the Indian Archives for anything relating to 673 Squadron. Only one hit, but it mentions your father by name.

NAIDLF01148085 is a short file of 'pen pictures' of the candidates attending your father's Glider Pilots OTS course at Belgaum in April/May 1945. The officer who wrote them is mercilessly offensive about the majority of the candidates, and concludes his letter to HQ 344 Wing by suggesting that the individuals should be "shown their own reports thereby administering a certain degree of encouragement or reproof whichever is appropriate". Can't imagine that was very good for morale...

I have copied all pages, split into two parts (attached below) so I could upload to the forum.

Martin