PHILIP JARRETT explores the lesser-known corners of aviation history, discovering
unknown images and rediscovering long-lost details of aircraft, people and events. This
time he needs your help to find out more about a wartime air-sea rescue unit and its crewLost Found
&
TAHI have yet to find a picture showing these ini-
tials on others of their kind. This leads to the
conclusion that they belonged either to an Army
Co-operation Command detachment or to No 276
Sqn, a search-and-rescue unit created from the
Command in October 1941 and which was based
at Harrowbeer in Devon, and had a detachment
based at Fairwood Common at this time.
Unfortunately the personnel, who appear to be
the same in both pictures, are unidentified. In both
cases the front row comprises the aircraftmen
who presumably maintained the “Lizzies” and
their engines. In the rear row in the group close-
up there are, from left to right, three sergeant air
gunners, a sergeant pilot, a pilot officer, another
sergeant pilot and a flight sergeant air gunner.
Can someone identify any of them, or are
their names now lost to posterity?Issue No 18 THE AVIATION HISTORIAN 123T
HESE RECENTLY acquired snapshots
merely had “1941 Swansea” written on
their backs, but a bit of quick digging
soon yielded some more information.
The best clue was the Boulton Paul
Defiant in the background of the more distant
group shot. It bears the code letters VA-P, which
identifies it as belonging to No 125 Sqn, based at
RAF Fairwood Common in South Wales, close to
Swansea, from late September 1941 to January
1942, tasked with countering Luftwaffe night
raids on South Wales and the Bristol area.
The Westland Lysander Mk IIIAs were rather
more interesting, even though no serial numbers
are visible. The initials “ASRS” forward of their
fuselage roundels denotes that they were in an
air-sea rescue unit, and I presume the letters
stood for Air Sea Rescue Service (or Squadron).RIGHT The members of the search-
and-rescue detachment at Fairwood
Common, near Swansea, in the latter
part of 1941. Are any faces familiar?
BELOW A pair of Westland Lysanders
bearing the somewhat primitively-
applied initials “ASRS” on their
fuselages, with Boulton Paul Defiant
VA-P of No 125 Sqn in the background.
Note the special air-sea rescue
canisters attached to the nearest
Lysander’s undercarriage fairing. If you
have any more information on these have any more information on these
Lysanders or the crew in the group
portrait at right, let the Editor know!