page_title: Royal Air Force Special Duties Service
section_title: Short Stirling
hierarchical_section_title: Royal Air Force Special Duties Service / Aircraft / Short Stirling
caption_attribution_description: English: The Royal Air Force in Britain, January 1942 A seven man crew from No 149 Squadron, Royal Air Force under the nose of Short Stirling W7455/`OJ-B' at Mildenhall, Suffolk, while the aircraft is being bombed-up.
context_page_description: The Royal Air Force Special Duties Service was a secret air service created to provide air transport to support the resistance movement in Axis controlled territories. The service helped develop and support the resistance by bringing in agents, wireless operators and supplies. Parachute drop was the primary method by which the Special Duties units delivered supplies and most of the agents to the occupied countries. They also developed an air taxi service to pick up agents, political leaders and special communications from occupied Europe and bring them to England. On the outward flight the air taxi service also delivered agents and high value packages to France. Special Duties flights flew to target fields in Vichy France, Occupied France, Belgium, Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Czechoslovakia, Yugoslavia, and Greece. By the end of the war Special Duties units were also operating in the Far East. The air units were controlled by the Royal Air Force, and worked closely with the SOE and the SIS.
context_section_description: By mid 1943 the Short Stirling became available on loan from Bomber Command for service with the Special Duties squadrons. The Stirling was a large aircraft, designed in the late 1930s as the heavy bomber by which Bomber Command would conduct strategic bombing. From conception it was designed as a 4 engine bomber, and was huge. It had the capacity to lift 14,000 pounds. Though heavy and relatively underpowered, Stirlings had excellent low and medium altitude performance, were extremely maneuverable for a large plane and had a range of 3,000 miles. By the time they were in use with Special Duties the big plane's problems with its undercarriage collapsing had largely been worked out. The Stirlings could carry 20 C-type metal supply containers, 33% more than the Halifax. This aircraft became available for full-time use with the special duties squadrons in May 1944, and they began re-equipping with them. By the end of the year it had replaced the Halifax.
caption: An enormous Stirling is loaded with bombs prior to its use with the SD squadrons
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