Guideline Airlift Force: RAF Transport Command 1948-1967

Airlift Force RAF Transport Command 1948-1967 By Colin Ovens Consider, for a moment, these three Royal Air Force Command titles:- "Royal Air Force Bomber Command"- a name that, for many, may generate imposing images of Wellingtons, Halifaxs, Stirlings, Lancasters, Mosquitos, Lincolns, BAC/EE Canberra s, and the V-Bombers; "Royal Air Force Fighter Command"- a Command title that readily conjures up exciting images of Hurricanes, Spitfires, Tempests, Meteors, Vampires, Hunters, and Lightnings; "Royal Air Force Coastal Command"- a renowned name that may prompt dramatic over-water images of Sunderlands, Beaufighters, Mosquitos, Catalinas, Liberators, and Shackletons. Now, consider the title "Royal Air Force Transport Command"... t o many readers this may prompt images of huge formations of Dakotas, disgorging paratroops over Normandy, Arnhem, or the Rhine; others will have a recollection of the Berlin Airlift. On the other hand, many of us will recall seeing, and ignoring, the occasional Argosy, Beverley, Bristol Britannia , Hastings, Comet, or, perhaps, a VC-10, in the static park at a Battle of Britain Open Day, while they aimed their cameras at the Hunters, Gloster Javelins, Lightnings, V-Bombers, or Shackletons on show- these were the exciting defenders of these isles; and those others..? "They're just superannuated airliners", as a school-friend airily dismissed Transport Command's contribution to a Battle of Britain Open Day, at RAF Biggin Hill in the mid-1960s, when we two were teenagers. 92 pages perfect bound