Traces of World War 2 
FAA - No. 701 Squadron
10/05/1940 - 30/06/1940

      home - latest update 27 February 2008


FLEET AIR ARM 701 SQUADRON - Supermarine Walrus

History | Operations and losses | Sources | Links | Books | Questions and/or remarks



Established early 1940 (?). Based on HMS Glorious, Harstad, Norway and on Iceland, following the British landing on 10/05/1940; it was replaced by 98 Squadron of the RAF with 18 aircraft.


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Operations and losses 10/05/1940 - 30/06/1940
Not all operations listed; those with fatal losses are.

12/05/1940: Embarkation on HMS Glorious.
18/05/1940: Transfer HMS Glorious - Harstad (Norway)
08/06/1940: Last flight from HMS Glorious

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12/05/1940: Embarkation on HMS Glorious.

At 11.00 hrs HMS Furious departed the Clyde to embark the aircraft. The Fleet Air Arm pilots of both 802 and 804 Squadrons flew the RAF Gladiator IIs of 263 Squadron aboard. That done, she then brought aboard the nine Swordfish of 818 Squadron to join the six Sea Gladiators of 804 Squadron detachment. At 1300 HMS Glorious, now carrying the 18 RAF Hurricane's, puts to sea to bring aboard the six Walrus amphibians of the newly established 701 Squadron, which are also bound for Norway. These join her modest air group consisting of five Sea Gladiators of 802 Squadron and six Swordfish of 823 Squadron. At 1415, both ships return to Greenock

Source: Seawaves.com.

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18/05/1940: Transfer HMS Glorious - Harstad (Norway)

Aircraft carrier Glorious flew the six Walrus aircraft of the 701 Squadron ashore for operations at Harstad, where they remained based until the final evacuation, doing most useful work—ferrying, maintaining communications and daily reconnaissances, ending with a well planned bombing attack on Solfolla most efficiently carried out. Commander R.S.D. Armour, R.N., who was in command of the Fleet Air Arm, is much to be commended.

Sources: British and Other Navies in World War 2 Day-by-Day; London Gazette (08/07/1947),

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08/06/1940: last flight from HMS Glorious

Shortly after 01.00 hrs a 701 Squadron Walrus landed aboard HMS glorious with several important communications. Its mission accomplished, it took off for HMS Ark Royal at0207, the last aircraft to takeoff the ill-fated Glorious.

Source: The Second World War - a day by day account: 8 June 1940


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Sources

826 Squadron - Fleet Air Arm Archive
Air of Authority
Auckland War Memorial Museum Cenotaph Database
Australian War Memorial
Bail-outs for 1940
British and Other Navies in World War 2 Day-by-Day
T.K. Derry (1952), The Campaign in Norway
Canadian Virtual War Memorial
Casualty Lists Royal Navy
Commonwealth War Graves Commission
Fleet Air Arm Archive 1939-1945
Fleet Air Arm Museum
Fleet Air Arm Archive 1939-1945: Prisoners of War
Flying Marines
Lee-on-Solent Memorial (missing FAA members)
Prisoners of War captured in Europe 1940
RAF against odds (Time, USA, 27/05/1940)
RAF - Campaign Diary - The Battle of France (May-June 1940)
RAF Museum: British Military Aviation in 1940
RAF Order of Battle, France, 10th May 1940
Royal Air Force History Section
The Royal Air Force, 1939-1945
The Second World War - a day by day account

Bill Stone - Iceland in the Second World War
The War in France and Flanders, 1939-1940, by Major L.F. Ellis, 1954

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Books

Peter D. Cornwell, The Battle of France, Then and Now, 2008
Norman Franks, Air Battle Dunkirk
Ross McNeill 'Royal Air Force Coastal Command Losses of the Second World War' (Midland Counties)
Ray Sturvivant, Fleet Air Arm Aircraft 1939-1945, Air Britain Historians Ltd, 1995

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Links

Discussion Groups
Luftwaffe and Allied Air Forces Discussion Forum
RAF Commands Forum

Other
Abbreviations used in the Royal Air Force
Code Names & RAF Vocabulary

Air Aces
Airwar over Denmark
Allied World War II Casualties in the Netherlands
Armée de l'Air - Order of Battle, 10th May 1940
Australian Wargraves
Axis History Factbook
Battle-of-Britain.com
De Belgen in Engeland 1940-1945 (in Dutch)
Belgian Aviation History Association Archaeological Team
British Aircraft Directory
British Aviation Archaeological Council - Books and research links
Canada's Air Force History
HMS Cavalier
Ciel de Gloire (in French) RAF Squadrons
CWGC Cemeteries Germany
CWGC Cemeteries Netherlands
Czechoslovak airmen in the RAF 1940-1945
Danish WW2 Pilots

Dutch Pilots in RAF Squadrons
Eagles Squadrons (American pilots in the RAF)
Foreign Aircraft Landings in Ireland 1939-1946
Håkans aviation page (from Sweden, in English)
'High flight', poem by John Gillespie Magee
An Irish Airman Foresees His Death, poem by W.B. Yeats
Jagdgeschwader 27 (in German)
Luchtoorlog ('Arial War', in Dutch, with many photos)
Land Forces of Britain, the Empire and Commonwealth
The Luftwaffe, 1933-1945
Luftwaffe and Allied Air Forces Discussion Forum
The National Ex-Prisoners of War Association
Naval History.net
Nordic Aviation during WW2
Pilotfriend.com: aircraft of WW2
Polish Air Force 1940-1947 Operations Record Books
RAF Battle of Britain
RAF Upwood
De Slag om de Grebbeberg
(Dutch)
Warbird Alley
War over Holland
World War II Aircraft wrecksites in Norway
www.bomber-command.de

Aircraft crashes on the North Yorkshire Moors, England
Bills-Bunker.de
The Lancastershire Aircraft Investigation Team
Luftfahrt-Archäologie in Schleswig Holstein (in German)
North East Diary 1939-1945
Wartime Leicester and Leicestershire

The Aerodrome - Aces and Aircraft of World War 1
WW1 Cemeteries

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This page is dedicated to the men of FAA 701 Squadron.

© Bart FM Droog / Rottend Staal Online 2008. Permission granted for use of the data gathered here for non commercial purposes, if this source is mentioned with a link to http://www.epibreren.com/ww2/raf/index.html