No. 4 Squadron RCAF

No. 4 Squadron RCAF
Active	17 February 1933 - 7 August 1945[1]
Disbanded	7 August 1945
Country	Canada
Branch	Royal Canadian Air Force
Role	Flying Boat (FB)unit General Reconnaissance (GR) Bomber Reconnaissance (BR)[1]
Part of	RCAF Western Air Command
Battle honours	Pacific Coast 1941-1945[2]
Aircraft flown
Bomber	Blackburn Shark Mk.III[1]
Patrol	Canadian Vickers Vancouver Mk.II Canadian Vickers Vedette Supermarine Stranraer Consolidated Canso A Consolidated Catalina Mk.IV[1]
Transport	Fairchild 71[1]

No. 4 (Bomber Reconnaissance) Squadron was a Royal Canadian Air Force squadron that was active before and during the Second World War. It was formed on 17 January 1933 at RCAF Station Jericho Beach and flew civil operations until 1939, conducting forestry, customs and fishing patrols as well as aerial photography.^[1] On 1 January 1938, it was redesignated a General Reconnaissance squadron but continued with the same aircraft, but began training for war operations.^[1]

On 10 September 1939, the unit was mobilized for the war and redesignated again, this time as a Bomber Reconnaissance squadron, and it began carrying out anti-submarine patrols under the direction of Western Air Command while based out of RCAF station Tofino, in British Columbia.^[1] During the war, the squadron flew the Blackburn Shark, Supermarine Stranraer, Consolidated Canso and Consolidated Catalina before disbanding on 7 August 1945.^[3]

Tofino Canso bomber crash

On 8 February 1945, Consolidated Canso 11007 was departing RCAF Station Tofino on a routine night anti-submarine patrol of the coastline having been cleared for take-off at 2300 hours and had just passed the end of the runway when the port engine failed. The flight carried 12 personnel, 620 imp gal (2,800 L) of fuel and four 255 lb (116 kg) depth charges. While failing to gain altitude over a forested area the pilot attempted a 180-degree turn to return to the airfield, and impacted the side of a low hill. All on board survived with only minor injuries. Later, the RCAF retrieved all salvageable equipment including radios, radar equipment and machine guns, and detonated the depth charges, leaving a crater.^[4][5][6] The wreck is in a relatively easy to access location in National Park land (which precludes salvage) close to roads and is a popular destination for hikers despite most of the area being swampy.

References

Citations

Bibliography

• Kostenuk, S.; Griffin, J. (1977). RCAF Squadron Histories and Aircraft: 1924–1968. Toronto, ON: Samuel Stevens, Hakkert & Co. p. 24. ISBN 978-0888665775.

• v
• t
• e

Royal Canadian Air Force squadrons

Squadron
numbers

Pre-WWII Squadrons	1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 18
100-series squadrons	110 111 112 113 114 115 116 117 118 119 120 121 122 123 124 125 126 127 128 129 130 131 132 133 134 135 145 147 149 160 161 162 163 164 165 166 167 168 170
WW2 400-series Article XV squadrons	400 401 402 403 404 405 406 407 408 409 410 411 412 413 414 415 416 417 418 419 420 421 422 423 424 425 426 427 428 429 430 431 432 433 434 435 436 437 438 439 440 441 442 443
WW2 600-series AOP squadrons1	664 665 666
Post-war squadrons	103 444 445 446 447 448 449 450

Squadron
codes

WW2 Canada	1 August 1939 - May 1942 AY BK BT DM EX FD FY JY KA KO LT MX NA OP OY PB QN RE TM XE XO YO ZD Unit formation in 1940 - May 1942 AN BF GK GV LU PO QE TQ RA Dartmouth Hurricanes 1942 1 or 2 1 or 2 1 or 2 May 1942 - 16 October 1942 AE AF AG AN AZ BA BD BV DE DZ EA ED EN ET FG FN GA GR HA HJ JK KL LM LR LV LZ MA MK MR NO PQ QG RA RS SZ TF TN UV UY VD VW XP XY YA YH YZ ZM ZR
WW2 Overseas 1940-1946	Operational squadrons AB AE AL AN AU AW BM BX 2I CI DB DG DH DN EE EQ 5V FD F3 6U GX G9 HU I8 9G KH KP KW LQ NA ND NH OW PT QB QL QO QY RA RR RU RV SE SP SW TH VR VZ WL YI YO YZ ZL ZU Z2 Transport squadrons OWL2 ODM ODN ODO
Post-WW2 1947 - 1958	1947 - 1951 (VCXXA)3 AA AB AC AD AG AH AK AM AN AO AP AQ AT AU AW AX BA BC BN BQ BU XV 1951 - 1958 (XXnnn)4 AF AM AN AP AQ AS AX BA BB BH BQ BR BT BU BV DL FG GW HG HO IG JF JW KE KH LP MN NQ PF PR QP QT RX SA SP SV TF UD VN XK XV

¹ Aircraft administered and serviced by the RCAF but manned by the Royal Canadian Artillery.

² Non-standard code as unit using OW added L. Letters normally denoted parent Command, aircraft type (L Liberator transport, D Dakota etc), unit, and individual aircraft.

³ VCXXA where VC was the civil code used by the RCAF replacing CF-, XX was the unit code and A was the aircraft ID letter

⁴ XXnnn where XX was the unit code and nnn was the last 3 digits of the serial number. Unit code was replaced with "RCAF" in 1958

This Canadian military history article is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it.

• v
• t
• e

This military aviation article is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it.

• v
• t
• e