Tail Ends

TAIL ENDS

Although officially said to have been disbanded on the 15th of September 1945, after its final touch down at Lasham, Hampshire, three days later from Germany on the 18th, 198 Squadron RAF could have still taken to the air again right up to the end of the following month before its aircraft and pilots were sent on or posted elswhere. For a while after the war some of 198's former personnel continued to meet at reunions and remembrance ceremonies although an official RAF Squadron Association was never formed for 198 and is even more unlikely now given the current number of survivors.

So much has been lost over the years regarding 198 that but for the generous input of Tony Hallett, Richard Armstrong, Arthur Bryant, and many others a lot of the information contained within this website would not be available, or worse even exist, and in some other cases only a small fragment of information survives.
For instance it is said that 198 had a squadron song during 1944/45 which was sung to the tune of "Strawberry Fair", but either no one these days remembers it or the words perhaps are too rude to repeat. Also items are sent to this website which it would like to use but a lack of supporting information, such as ownership and/or copyright details prevent it. At the moment the site is sitting on a several photographs of 198 but despite extensive enquiries it has not been possible to find the copyright owners, and of course there are always those rare historical documents, newspaper cuttings, and other related paper items which in some cases have become so badly faded or damaged over the years they cannot be used. However, no matter what condition items are in they are all kept for future reference along with a copy of 198's Operations Record Book (ORB), as well as complete examples and parts of some 198 pilots Flying Log Books. (For those who may be interested a complete copy of 198's Operations Record Book is available, at cost, from the Public Records Office at Kew, Surrey, UK, under document reference number Air 27.)

One of the "what ifs" of World War 2 is how the Hawker Typhoon would have performed in other operational theatres outside of Western Europe. The answer will never be known although it can be said that between May and August 1945, when the Japanese surrendered, 198 Squadron and its Typhoons were on stand-by for posting to the Far East. No doubt a new set of operational problems would have become evident if the aircraft had been used against ground targets hidden by dense jungle.
The desert campaigns of North Africa did see three Hawker Typhoons sent there for tropical trials in 1943 but as far as is known none of them saw any action and subsequently as a result the Hawker Typhoon, operationally speaking, remained strictly a Western Europe phenomenon.

In the space of some twenty four months 198 Squadron RAF lost the equivalent of two squadrons of pilots killed in action, a figure that led one former 198 pilot to remark some years ago: "If we had carried on losing pilots and aircraft at the rate we were going, especially during June and August of 1944, there was every chance that the squadron would have been reduced to existing only on paper and been disbanded earlier."