Cathcart Wight-Boycott - Service History - Royal Air Force

Royal Air Force

After joining the RAF he was promoted to Flight Lieutenant and his first posting was as a QFI at No. 1 Elementary and Reserve Flying Training School, Hatfield where he remained until May 1941. He was sent on a course at No. 54 Operational Training Unit before receiving a combat posting as a fighter pilot with No. 219 Squadron RAF. In July 1941 he was promoted again to Acting Squadron Leader and appointed as flight commander of ‘B’ flight.

In September 1942 his rank of Squadron Leader having been made substantive he was promoted to Acting Wing Commander and posted to RAF West Malling as Officer Commanding No. 29 Squadron RAF flying Bristol Beaufighters. Between December 1942 and January 1943 he took the additional temporary role of Station Commander at West Malling.

In February 1943, he was reverted to Squadron Leader (War Substantive) before he was posted in to No. 81 Group RAF as a headquarters staff officer. In July that year Wight-Boycott returned to operational flying as an Acting Wing Commander and Officer Commanding No. 9 Group RAF. In the September he was appointed Officer Commanding No. 25 Squadron RAF flying de Havilland Mosquitos. Wight-Boycott finished the air war with a score of seven aircraft destroyed, two damaged and two V-1 flying bombs shot down and destroyed.

In September 1944 Wight-Boycott was posted as a Headquarters Staff Officer with No. 12 Group RAF but only a few months later moved to an appointment as Station Commander of RAF Church Fenton. In early 1945 he moved, again as Station Commander, to RAF Molesworth home of the USAF 303rd Bombardment Group and remained there until September when he attended a ‘’Methods of Instruction’’ course at the RAF Senior Staff College.

Following his course he became an instructor at the RAF’s Officers’ Advanced Training School. As the war ended Wight-Boycott was confirmed as a permanent commission officer in the substantive rank of Squadron Leader. In July 1947 he was promoted to Wing Commander with seniority and pay backdated to October 1946. In February 1948 he was posted as the Air Staff Officer at Headquarters, RAF Middle East. He returned to the UK in 1950 on the staff at Headquarters Southern Sector, Fighter Command at RAF Colerne.

Promoted to Group Captain in July 1952 he took up the appointment of Station Commander at Colerne where remained until 1954 when he became a QFI at the RAF Flying College, RAF Manby in Lincolnshire. In April 1955 he was posted to RAF Luqa as Senior Air Staff Officer (SASO) at Air Headquarters Malta.

On 13 January 1958 he was appointed the RAF’s Director of Operational Requirements (A), moving sideways as Director of Organisation/Logistics (Forecasting and Planning) in September that year.

Read more about this topic:  Cathcart Wight-Boycott, Service History

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