Combat

Aircrews from 434 Squadron were involved in numerous air-to-air combats, subsequently a number of enemy aircraft were destroyed or damaged. Officially there had to be another witness other then the individual making the claim.
Unfortunately 434 did not escape these enemy engagements without suffering losses of their own, they would return with a damaged aircraft, dead or wounded members. Crew 152 and WL-P (NG-497) were attacked by a night-fighter on 21 Feb. 1945, Mu-Ag F/Sgt. J.H. Taggert was seriously injured, and the W/Op P/O H.A. Davey was killed. Photo; Courtesy Collection Harder family (F/L John Worthington Harder - also see "The Men in the Shed"). 

Below may have typos, I have the documents for all listed. There are numerous configurations when working with a spreadsheet, you will notice 84 lines, this is not indicative of 84 combats - two names may appear on one report as both fired thier weapons.

RAir gunner; Rear

MUAir gunner; Mid-Upper

  • 1943

  • 1944

  • 1945

  • Victories

    This page contains photo's and a number of full "Combat Reports" typed from original documents, this will give you an idea of content in these reports.

The U.K. Gov. has digitized many of thier "Combat Reports" and provided a search engine, which I found to be a trial & error to find individuals. So then a search by squadron found all files pertaining to 434 squadron, however I believe that numerous combat reports are not in thier database.

There is also a $7 (Canadian) fee per document, if they have duplicated the document twice (2 air-gunners) for the same combat report you may waste $7 for a copy of same report, they are aware of this problem and attempting to correct.

Here is the link... RAF Combat Reports Search