This Is What Ted Gosling Wants to Share With You

The pilot he flew with after Tony Marks left the squadron.

He’s Dick Nathan, a Mosquito pilot with 219 Squadron. This picture was taken at Lubeck, Germany after the war when 219 was stationed there.

The caption says it all…

This is another picture from the Gosling family collection. I wonder if it’s related to Dick Nathan’s death.

A sad day in the life of 219 Squadron at Lubeck Germany

Happier days…

A day in the life of Dick Nathan and his navigator Ted Gosling

RAF 219 Squadron

Try finding some information on RAF 219 Squadron on the Internet.

After, come back here. I won’t start a new blog about 219 Squadron, but Ted Gosling has some pictures to share with you.

History of 219 Squadron:

No 219 Squadron was formed in August 1918 at Westgate from units of the seaplane station there and at nearby Manston. No 442 Flight flew seaplanes from Westgate while Nos 555 and 556 Flights used DH9s at Manston, covered by No 470 Flight’s Camels. On 7 February the squadron was disbanded.

On 4 October 1939, No 219 was reformed at Catterick with Blenheim fighters for shipping protection duties and became operational on 21 February 1940. It soon became fully employed on night patrols and based detachments at various points for night defence. In October 1940, the squadron moved south to protect London and began to convert to Beaufighters.

It was June 1942 before it returned north, where it remained until leaving for North Africa in May 1943. It stationed detachments to protect ports and bases in Algeria and Tunisia and in September sent aircraft to Sicily for local defence. In January 1944, No.219 left for the UK and joined second TAF with Mosquitoes. Intruder patrols were flown over France and the low countries and covered the Normandy beaches after D-day. In October 1944 the squadron moved to France for the rest of the war, returning to the UK in August 1945, where it disbanded on 1 September 1946.

No.219 reformed on 1 March 1951 at Kabrit as a night fighter squadron in Egypt. It replaced its Mosquitoes with Meteors in 1953 and disbanded on 1 September 1954, when its aircraft left for the UK. On 5 September 1955, No.219 reformed at Driffield with Venom NF.2 all weather fighters, disbanding again on 31 July 1957.