aircraft fire and enemy air opposition, provided tactical reconnaissance throughout this final phase of the battle and by 3rd November the enemy was defeated and effected a complete withdrawal along the whole front. The 8th Army followed up the withdrawal to Fuka making continuous use of our bombers and regained Mersa Matruh and Sidi Barrani.
The Squadron, working with 30 Corps, moved further forward to a new landing ground at Burg El Arab but on 8th November ceased to operate, being held in reserve for possible further action should the enemy make a stand at Agheila. Sorties were carried out to locate straggling Germans or Italians before the Squadron was given a rest, though it remained on standby for further action.
REST FROM OPERATIONS
Now that the Squadron had ceased to fly on operations it commenced a training programme in December covering cloud and formation flying, evasion tactics, low flying and ground attack, and practice artillery shoots in conjunction with the Army. In January the Squadron was instructed to move to Aqsu, South West of Tuz Kharmatli in Iraq for winter training with No. 21 Corps. under control of AHQ Iraq and Persia. Two weeks later after moving 1,330 miles training was re-commenced and throughout the following months the Squadron operated from Kirkuk, with flights at Beirut and Baghdad. The various training sorties and exercises carried out covered areas as far as Cyprus and Damascus.
The only change of note was that from April 1943 the Squadron became known as 208 Fighter Reconnaissance Squadron instead of 208 Army Co-operation Squadron. Training continued through the Summer while the Squadron moved to Rayak in Syria. The pilots became despondent about the lack of demands from the Army for reconnaissance flights and wondered whether they would ever see operations again. However, on 8th September there was great jubilation on the Squadron when it learned of the unconditional surrender of Italy against whom it had operated for a long period at the beginning of the war.
Training was stepped up to improve fighter and evasion tactics and interceptions while strafing sorties were carried out for the Mountain Warfare Training School. By the middle of the month the Squadron was loaned a Spitfire for pilots to gain experience on type, a hopeful sign for the future.
In November the Squadron moved once more, this time to El Bassa in Palestine, to train with the 7th Army Group Royal Artillery practising photo- dropping and vertical and oblique photography. In December, the long awaited news arrived that the Squadron was to be re-equipped with Spitfires and one flight was moved to Muqeibila and then Megidda to practise flying the new aircraft, the runway at El Bassa being too short. By January, the Squadron, equipped with sixteen Spitfires, took part in an exercise in the Cairo-Suez area and so impressed the Army with its accuracy in pinpointing targets that it was suspected of ‘fixing”! The Spitfire was found to be better equipped for photographic work and both vertical and oblique results proved successful on the exercise.
In February two flights moved to Barsis, Cyrenaica to carry out the depressing duty of shipping patrols. However this order was cancelled on arrival at Barsis and the Squadron joyfully learned that it was destined for operations in Italy.
The Squadron therefore completed an about face and travelled the 1,550 miles back to Megidda again. By the beginning of March personnel were on their way to Italy happy in the knowledge that they were to be rearmed with Spitfire IXs.
