776 Naval Air Squadron


776 Naval Air Squadron was a Fleet Air Arm naval air squadron of the United Kingdom’s Royal Navy which last disbanded at the end of October 1945. 776 Naval Air Squadron formed as a Fleet Requirements Unit at HMS Daedalus, RNAS Lee-on-Solent, at the start of 1941. It operated a detachment at RN Air Section Speke in 1941 and one at RAF Woodvale in 1942, with the squadron wholly moving to Speke in the October. 1943 saw further detachments and these were deployed at RAF Llanbedr, RAF Millom, RAF Usworth and RAF Waltham. In April 1945, the Woodvale detachment was reabsorbed into the squadron when it relocated there, the airbase now operated by the Admiralty and known as HMS Ringtail II. It moved to HMS Ringtail, RNAS, Burscough, at the start of October 1945.

History

Fleet Requirements Units (1941–1945)

776 Naval Air Squadron formed at RNAS Lee-on-Solent (HMS Daedalus), Hampshire, England, on 1 January 1941, as a Fleet Requirements Unit. It initially operated with three Bristol Blenheim, a twin-engine light bomber, and several Blackburn Roc, a naval turret fighter aircraft, some of which of the latter were detached to R.N. Air Section Speke, Liverpool, England, on 22 March 1941, while a second detachment went to RAF Woodvale, Merseyside, England, on 16 May 1942. During 1942 the squadron received Blackburn Skua, a carrier-based dive bomber and fighter aircraft that was converted for target towing, and Vought Chesapeake an American carrier-based dive bomber, and on 18 October the squadron relocated to R. N. Air Section Speke.
The following year, detachments were deployed at RAF Llanbedr, Gwynedd, Wales, RAF Millom, Cumbria, England, RAF Usworth, Tyne and Wear, England, and RAF Waltham, Lincolnshire, England. The personal de Havilland Dominie, a short-haul biplane airliner, of the Commander-in-Chief, Western Approaches, was also on strength at Speke. In early 1944, 776 NAS received a number of new aircraft had a strength of fourteen Hawker Hurricane fighter aircraft, twelve Boulton Paul Defiant target tug, eight Bristol Blenheim light bomber and a Fairey Swordfish torpedo bomber.
By March 1945 the squadron provided target towing for the Night Fighter Operational School at RNAS Inskip (HMS Nightjar) and the Naval Gunnery Training School at Ainsdale and the Boulton Paul Defiant target tug aircraft were replaced by Miles Martinet target tugs. On 7 April 1945 the squadron moved to RNAS Woodvale, what was previously RAF Woodvale, and reabsorbed the detachment there. The following month ten Supermarine Seafire arrived, a navalised version of the Supermarine Spitfire fighter aircraft. The squadron moved to RNAS Burscough (HMS Ringtail), Lancashire, on 6 October and disbanded on 30th.

Aircraft operated

The squadron operated a number of different aircraft types, including:

Naval air stations

776 Naval Air Squadron operated from a number of naval air stations of the Royal Navy, in the United Kingdom:

Commanding officers

List of commanding officers of 776 Naval Air Squadron with date of appointment:
Note: Abbreviation signifies Air Branch of the RN or RNVR.