Traces of World War 2 
Royal Air Force - No. 15 Operational Training Unit
01/01/1940 - 30/06/1940

      home - latest update 19 April 2008



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



Formed at Harwell on 8 April 1940 from the No 3 Group Pool , which comprised No's 75 and 148 Squadrons, within No 6 Group, to train night bomber crews using Wellingtons. It was transferred to No 7 Group on 15 July 1940 until 11 May 1942 when No 7 Group was renumbered No 92 Group. At this point it began training crews for overseas Wellington units. In July 1941 it moved to Mount Farm but returned to Harwell in February 1942, where it remained until disbanding on 15 March 1944.


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Operations and losses 01/01/1940 - 30/06/1940
incomplete - only fatalities are listed

13/05/1940: ?, UK. 1 a/c lost, 2 KIA

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13/05/1940: ?, UK

Type:
Wellington I.A
Serial number: N2901, -?
Operation: ?
Lost: 13/05/1940
Pilot Officer (Pilot) William M.A. Davies, RAFVR 74669, [15 OTU], age 21, 13/05/1940, Harwell Cemetery, UK
Aircraftman 2nd Class (Air Gnr.) Albert N. Pulfrey, RAFVR 742203, [15 OTU], age 23, 13/05/1940, Grimsby (Scartho Road) Cemetery, UK
Engine failure, crashed 2 miles east from Axminster, Devon - 11.20 hrs

Sources: CWGC and Chorley, Bomber Command Losses Vol VII, page 15.

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Sources

Air of Authority - 15 OTU
Air Force POWs 1939-1945
Auckland War Memorial Museum Cenotaph Database
Australian War Memorial
Bail-outs for 1940
Canadian Virtual War Memorial
Commonwealth War Graves Commission
The London Gazette
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
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

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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
AirRecce - The story of photographic reconnaissance
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
Biplane Fighter Aces from the Second World War
The Bristol & District Blitz War Memorial - A register of those who lost their lives due to enemy action in Bristol and surrounding districts, 1940-1944
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
'High flight', poem by John Gillespie Magee
Holocaust Memorial Day and Channel Islands Occupation Memorial
I Remember (in Russian and English)
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
Order of Liberation (in French/English/Spanish)
Pilotfriend.com: aircraft of WW2
Polish Air Force 1940-1947 Operations Record Books
RAF Battle of Britain
RAF Upwood
RAF WWII 38 Group Squadrons Reunited
De Slag om de Grebbeberg (Dutch)
Test Flying Memorial
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 15 OTU.

© 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