Chris Ward 630 Squadron

During the autumn and early winter of 1943, a batch of new Lancaster squadrons was formed in Bomber Command and, having become the first resident unit of the new bomber station at East Kirkby in August, 57 Squadron donated its C Flight to become the nucleus of 630 Squadron in mid-November. The fledgling unit was operational in time to participate in the resumption of the Berlin offensive, over the winter of 1943/44. It was a tough time for the bulk of the crews, inexperienced on arriving from the conversion units, as their first taste of going to war would be a campaign against Germany's capital city and other distant targets. From April 1944 onwards, 630 Squadron took part in the pre-invasion raids on railway infrastructure and coastal defences in occupied France and Belgium. After D-Day, the unit was engaged in the campaigns against oil, V-Weapons and communications targets, while providing tactical support for the Allied ground forces. During the autumn, a second Ruhr offensive saw the squadron participate in the levelling of all of the major towns and cities in the enemy's industrial heartland and later at locations across the rest of Germany. 5 Group became Bomber Command's "canal busters", with a series of operations against the Dortmund-Ems and Mittelland Canals between November 1944 and March 1945, which put a stranglehold on one of Germany's most important communications systems. 630 Squadron played its part in 5 Group's success and once the bombing war concluded in late April, took part in the humanitarian campaigns to feed the starving Dutch people still under occupation and to repatriate former prisoners of war from the Continent. In the late 1980s, the home of 630 Squadron, East Kirkby, became the Lincolnshire Aviation Heritage Centre, where the restored Lancaster NX611 is the centrepiece and proudly bears the codes of both 57 and 630 Squadrons.