Reformed 617 Squadron will fly supersonic warplanes
THE DEFENCE Secretary, Gavin Williamson, said it was “very fitting” that Britain’s new F-35 Lightning stealth fighter jets would carry the name of the Dam Busters squadron.
Mr Williamson announced the imminent arrival of the supersonic warplanes on a visit to RAF Coningsby on the 75th anniversary of the 1943 mission.
The 617 Squadron, whose Lancaster bombers targeted the dams of industrial Germany, was recently stood back up for the F-35 jets, which will be based at RAF Marham in Norfolk from next month.
Mr Williamson positioned himself in front of a Lancaster Bomber in a hangar at the Battle of Britain Memorial Flight to make his announcement yesterday.
“If you think about what the Dam Busters were doing 75 years ago they were using the very cutting-edge technology in order to be able do the job that they had been asked to do,” he said.
“If you think about the modern 617 Squadron, we’re going to be giving them the very best of technology, the very cutting edge of technology, the very best and the most advanced aircraft in the whole world and it’s fitting that those that have such an amazing jet have and carry that name.”
He was shown inside the cockpit of a Lancaster, viewed a Spitfire and paid tribute to the “sacrifice” of the original 617 Squadron.
The commanding officer of 617 Squadron, Wing Commander John Butcher, said he had been inspired to join the RAF by his late grandfather, also called John, who flew Lancasters in the Second World War.
The flight lieutenant, who was in his early twenties when piloting Lancasters, flew 30 operational missions from 1943-4, became an instructor on the Lancaster training unit and left the service shortly after the war.
“I was always fascinated in his stories,” said Wg Cdr Butcher, who will become the first person to land an F-35 on UK soil.
“I would ask him a lot of questions about his service career, about the flying that he’d done, the training he did to get ready, about what it was like with his crew and I think it was just an amalgamation of all of those stories that inspired me to want to join the RAF and my parents tell me that I declared that at a very young age.”
Asked what his grandfather would have made of the new jets, he said: “I think he would be amazed.”