WW2 WRAF Women’s Royal Airforce 3rd Group Headquarters Raf Hurdles Medal

Description: For sale is a WW2 WRAF Women’s Royal Airforce 3rd Group Headquarters Raf Hurdles Medal. The front of the medal has the 3rd Group Headquarters gilded & enamel, with the back engraved “W.R.A.F 80m Hurdles Runners Up”. I believe this medal silver plated, and it comes in its original box. We believe it’s wartime to very early post war period. No. 3 Group (3 Gp) of the Royal Air Force was an RAF group first active in 1918, again in 1923–26, part of RAF Bomber Command from 1936 to 1967, and part of RAF Strike Command from 2000 until it disbanded on 1 April 2006. Reformed in 1923, 3 Group was disbanded on 12 April 1926 at RAF Spitalgate by renumbering it No. 23 (Training) Group. The Group was reformed at Andover, Wiltshire on 1 May 1936, under Air Vice-Marshal Patrick Playfair. Ten months later Group HQ moved to RAF Mildenhall in Suffolk, a direct result of the Air Ministry's decision to form two new bomber groups and reorganise its existing groups. No. 3 Group was initially equipped with the ungainly Vickers Virginia and Handley Page Heyford, which was the RAF's last biplane heavy bomber. With the arrival of the then revolutionary twin engined Vickers Wellington it was decided that No. 3 Group would be tasked with introducing the type into front line service. The first squadron in Bomber Command to be equipped was No. 99 Squadron RAF based at Mildenhall, on 10 October 1938. Air Commodore A A B Thomson, Playfair's successor, was killed on 8 August 1939 while viewing the bombing up of a Vickers Wellington of No. 115 Squadron RAF. While under the fuselage, he slipped and was struck on the head by the rotating airscrew. Air Vice-Marshal J E A Baldwin took over the Group on 29 August 1939. By September 1939 the entire group (totalling six front line squadrons and two reserve squadrons) was fully equipped with an all-Wellington force totalling over 100 aircraft located at five East Anglian airfields. 3 Group continued to be primarily based in East Anglia for the rest of WWII. 3 Group's first wartime operations were attacks against German warships at Wilhelmshaven and Brunsbüttel. Group HQ moved to Harraton House, Exning, Suffolk, in March 1940. On 2 April 1940, two squadrons were temporarily transferred to RAF Coastal Command and advanced bases in Northern Scotland, and they had hardly settled in before the Germans invaded Denmark and Norway. The squadrons went into action immediately and on 11/12 April one of them (115 Sqn) became the first RAF unit to bomb deliberately a mainland target (Stavanger Airport, Sola) during the Second World War. In September 1940 3 Group Bomber Command assumed administrative control of No. 419 Flight, the first of the Royal Air Force Special Duties Service units. The group provided administrative support for all the Special Duties squadrons til the end of the war. In 1942 the Group’s strength was almost halved when 7, 156, and 109 Squadrons were transferred to the newly created No. 8 Group – the Pathfinder Force. In March 1943 3 Group consisted of: 3 Group Headquarters – Harraton House, Exning, Suffolk. 15 Sqn, RAF Bourn, Short Stirling 75 Sqn, RAF Newmarket, Stirling 90 Sqn, RAF Ridgewell, Stirling 115 Sqn, RAF East Wretham, Wellington & Lancaster 138 (Special Duties) Squadron, RAF Tempsford, Halifax 149 Sqn, RAF Lakenheath, Stirling 199 Sqn, RAF Lakenheath, Stirling 161 (Special Duties) Squadron, RAF Tempsford, Lysander, Halifax Hudson Havoc Albemarle Hudson Cygnet 192 (Special Duties) Squadron, RAF Gransden Lodge, Halifax, Wellington Mk.X Mosquito Wellington Mk.IC 214 Sqn, RAF Chedburgh, Stirling 218 Sqn, RAF Downham Market, Stirling After the invasion of Normandy, Bomber Command joined in the campaign against German oil targets. Although daylight bombing against targets within Germany itself still incurred too many casualties closer targets could be attacked by day with fighter escorts. 3 Group carried out blind bombing techniques by day using G-H. Both box and medal in good condition. This will be sent via Royal Mail 1st class signed for and dispatched within two working days.

Price: 30 GBP

Location: Southampton

End Time: 2024-09-28T17:46:44.000Z

Shipping Cost: 18.76 GBP