No. 550 Squadron RAF

No. 550 Squadron RAF was a heavy bomber squadron of the Royal Air Force during World War II.

History
No. 550 squadron was formed at RAF Waltham (near Grimsby), Lincolnshire on 25 November 1943 from 'C' Flight of 100 Squadron. Equipped with Avro Lancasters, they began operating in the same month, as part of No. 1 Group RAF. On November 26/27, 8 of their Lancasters were dispatched to make bombing runs over Berlin; 7 succeeded, with the other failing to return after the mission. In early 1944, it was moved to RAF North Killingholme, Lincolnshire where it continued operations over German targets until May 1945, when it began dropping food over the Netherlands as a relieve effort as part of Operation Manna. The squadron completed 3,582 operational sorties with the Lancaster with a loss of 59 aircraft. It was disbanded at North Killingholme on 31 October 1945., the same day that North Killinghome closed.

Operation Banquet
Before standing up as an operational bomber unit 550 Squadron was allocated to the Air Fighting Development Unit under 'Operation Banquet' anti-invasion plans.

Notable aircraft
Three of the Lancasters that flew with 550 squadron managed to survive one hundred operations or more, and one nearly did so: