No. 3 (S.A.) Wing
South African Air Force unit
No. 3 (S.A.) Wing was a South African Air Force commanded formation during World War II that served in North Africa, Sicily and Italy. The formation was recommended by HQ RAF Middle East on 28 October 1941 to the Air Ministry and authorised by AIR54/96 on 3 November 1941. The Wing initially consisted of Royal Air Force and South African Air Force squadrons under South African command: No. 11 Squadron RAF and No. 113 Squadron RAF with Bristol Blenheim bombers and fighters and No. 12 Squadron SAAF, No. 21 Squadron SAAF (both with Martin Maryland bombers and No. 24 Squadron SAAF with Douglas Boston bombers. The latter unit was re-assigned to Army Cooperation before the start of Operation Crusader while No.
The public source identifies “No. 3 (S.A.) Wing” as south African Air Force unit. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Wing, South and African.
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Vocabulary and entity names are the principal evidence signals here, because they determine the precision of every later search. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jan 18, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q16800771. 1 of 2 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1941.
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This entry incorporates text from “No. 3 (S.A.) Wing” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.