Note on Sources for Pre Independence Losses: The data for the pre-1947 crashes has been built from several sources.
Operational losses are taken from the Official History of the Royal Indian
Air Force 1933-45 (Ed by SN Gupta , pub by MoD India) but the names
could only be confirmed after referring to the Commonwealth War Graves
Commission Web Site at www.cwgc.org.
With the operational losses covered, it was time to cover Non-operational losses.
Many of the non-operational losses of the Squadrons and Coastal Defence Flights
come from the Operational Record Book copies -held with the National Archives
in Kew, UK. The ORBs that have been consulted include ORBs of 1 Sqn (From Apr
42), 2 Sqn, 3 Sqn, 4 Sqn, 6 Sqn, 7 Sqn, 8 Sqn, 9 Sqn, 10 Sqn, 12 Sqn, 101 Sqn,
104 Sqn, 2CDF, 5CDF, 6CDF. and No.1 TTF (India) . Some of the these are also
supported by logbook entries of pilots who flew in operations.
The losses of training and non-combat units have to be procured by other sources.
details of crashes related to 151OTU, 22AACU , AFTS / SFTS, AGS(I) after March
45 can be found in the three books, Final Landings by Colin Cummings
, Broken Wings by James J Halley, pub by Air Britain Ltd and Price
of Peace by Colin Cummings . These books do an excellent job in covering
ALL losses in the SEAC sector after May 1945 till Aug 47. Including the squadrons
and combat flights.
Type Histories are another excellent resource - Spitfire International
by Helmut Terbeck and Co, pub by Air Britain Ltd addresses all Spitfire fates
in SEAC. The K-File by J J Halley, again published by Air Britain
is an excellent source for K serialled aircraft, including the Wapiti, Hart,
Audax, Valencia and any other type that served with the IAF. The Impressment
Log (Air Britain) addresses various civvie types that were impressed
into the Coastal Defence Flights - it also covers many of the civilian impressed
Tigermoths. The Bristol Blenheim History book is a good source
on the type. Various RAF Serial Number series , published by Air-Britain,
helped fill in details of various losses that cannot be got from the Cummings
/ Halley book or the ORBs - they cover the J Series (wapitis), L, N, P, R series
(Lysanders). the AA-ZZ series which should cover many types as the Hurricane
Vengeance etc.
So what else is left? For starters, the losses for the following units for
types that exclude the ones mentioned above - are not available above upto March
45
FTS Risalpur
151 OTU
152 OTU
No.1 AGS
No.1 SFTS
No.1 EFTS
No.2 EFTS
Various AA flights
No.22 AACU
The ORBs of many of these units are located in NA in Kew and I do plan to procure
them at some point of time in the future.
Note on Sources for Post 47 Losses: All News reports
are collated from PTI, UNI , Reuters India and other News agencies in India. We
acknowledge their help in providing the info. The following Newspapers have
been helpful in gathering information which is acknowledged here : Daily Herald, Tribune
India, Express India, Gomantak Times, Daily Excelsior, Rediff News, and Air Forces
Monthly.
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