Nicely done Mark. You’ve got a great record there of an experience I’m sure you’ll always treasure.

John King is one of New Zealand’s leading aviation photographers and has had much published in calendars and books, as well as magazines.

I hope that you had a wonderful experience in NZ and that someday you’ll return again.

Dave

As far as I’m aware the OFFICIAL abbreviation has always been Sqn. but if anyone can prove me wrong with evidence of a different official term I’d be happy to concede.

However as we all know language evolves, and certainnthings have changed since the war. As pointed out here, abbreviations for ranks has changed. I have noted of late that the press always put a dash ‘-‘ between the words in Flight Lieutenant, Flight Sergeant, Squadron Leader and any other double-barreled rank.I haven’t yet looked into whether this was officially used too, within the RNZAF. But it is no longer used by either group today.

Also, even in wartime, language was misused by people. Yes, things like Sqdn., Sqd., sqn and other variations crept in through laziness or simple ignorance of officialdom. Whatever the official one was at the time, the others are all non-standard and would have been frowned upin by a SWO.

Frankly I would read Sqd. as referring to a squad, in Army terms rather than a squadron, each being a different sized formation.

I’ve never heard of Recco before, sounds like an Australian version of Rick from Neighbours or Home and Away.

As far as being part of a squadron, you can be both on a squadron and in a squadron. You are ‘on squadron’ if you are posted to a numbered squadron, such as No 40 Sqn. So you can then say “I’m on 40 Sqn” and people know you mean you work for the squadron.

You can be ‘on’ a non-numbered squadron too, such as my example at Wigram where I was ‘on Tech Sqn’. It simply means that is the unit you belong to. You could rightly say also that you were ‘in’ a non-numbered squadron too, “I work in Admin Squadron.” That is also correct.

And you can be ‘in’ a squadron when it is a formation and not an organisation. For example, on a Wing parade, the CO could say, “You lot are in Number 3 Sqn.” and you’d know exactly where to go and stand.

Actually, in a 2nd Hand bookshop in Hamilton there are several old RNZAF and RAF manuals for sale. On is Service Regulations for the RAF in 1938. I may havea flick through next time I’m in town.

Cheers
Dave