Retirement from the Royal Air Force
Title
Retirement from the Royal Air Force
Description
A summary of Group Captain Douglas 'Hank' Iveson D.S.O, D.F.C service career, following his retirement. Annotated 'Aug 1961 Chief Intelligence Officer of the Far East. Changi. Singapore. Returned to England. March 1964' and 'Medmenham. June 1964. Retired Nov. 1967.'
Date
1967-11
Temporal Coverage
Spatial Coverage
Language
Format
One newspaper cutting
Publisher
Rights
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Contributor
Identifier
SIvesonD19171121v10041
Transcription
Aug. 1961 Chief Intelligence Officer of the Far East. Changi Singapore.
Returned to England. March 1964.
[page break]
Medmenham. June 1964.
Retired Nov. 1967.
Honoured war-time pilot to retire from RAF
[photograph]
[symbol] Group Capt. D. Iveson
GROUP Captain D. Iveson, who won the DSO and DFC and bar for his war-time flying, retires from the RAF at the end of this month.
Group Capt. Iveson, a staff officer at Headquarters Signal Command, Medmenham, will be living at Sonning.
He joined the Royal Air Force Volunteer Reserve in 1939 and was commissioned as a pilot in 1940.
During the war he flew a great number of operational sorties with Halifax squadrons, and for one period in 1941 spent a lot of time searching in high latitudes for the Tirpitz.
In 1942, as a squadron leader, he took part in the first Thousand-bomber raid on Cologne, and later went out to the Middle East with the first Halifaxes to go there. The following year he was promoted to the rank of wing commander and assumed command of No. 76 (Halifax) Squadron.
After the war he commanded No.51 Squadron and in 1946 was awarded the Air Efficiency Award.
In 1949 he attended staff college in Toronto and then served with the American 311th Air Division (USAF).
He was chief instructor at the Valiant and Victor Operational Conversion Unit at RAF Gaydon from 1956 to 1958 and subsequently took command of RAF Waddington. Here he was awarded the Queen’s Commendation for Valuable Service in the Air.
After leaving Waddington he served in the Far East Air Force before coming to Medmenham.
Returned to England. March 1964.
[page break]
Medmenham. June 1964.
Retired Nov. 1967.
Honoured war-time pilot to retire from RAF
[photograph]
[symbol] Group Capt. D. Iveson
GROUP Captain D. Iveson, who won the DSO and DFC and bar for his war-time flying, retires from the RAF at the end of this month.
Group Capt. Iveson, a staff officer at Headquarters Signal Command, Medmenham, will be living at Sonning.
He joined the Royal Air Force Volunteer Reserve in 1939 and was commissioned as a pilot in 1940.
During the war he flew a great number of operational sorties with Halifax squadrons, and for one period in 1941 spent a lot of time searching in high latitudes for the Tirpitz.
In 1942, as a squadron leader, he took part in the first Thousand-bomber raid on Cologne, and later went out to the Middle East with the first Halifaxes to go there. The following year he was promoted to the rank of wing commander and assumed command of No. 76 (Halifax) Squadron.
After the war he commanded No.51 Squadron and in 1946 was awarded the Air Efficiency Award.
In 1949 he attended staff college in Toronto and then served with the American 311th Air Division (USAF).
He was chief instructor at the Valiant and Victor Operational Conversion Unit at RAF Gaydon from 1956 to 1958 and subsequently took command of RAF Waddington. Here he was awarded the Queen’s Commendation for Valuable Service in the Air.
After leaving Waddington he served in the Far East Air Force before coming to Medmenham.
Collection
Citation
“Retirement from the Royal Air Force,” IBCC Digital Archive, accessed October 11, 2026, https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/collections/document/44840.