Three more Ds were purchased from Taylorcraft and a trials unit, D Flight, under Major Charles Bazeley RA, formed at Old Sarum on 1 February 1940.

Stinson Vigilants eventually arrived in early 1942 but most had been severely damaged in transit leading to the adoption of the Taylorcraft Auster 1 and an order for 100 aircraft placed.

Aircraft were fitted with the Army's No 22 Wireless, an HF set providing two-way voice communications with artillery units and formations on the ground.

On 31 March 1943 the Army Cooperation Command was disbanded, most of its assets being used to form the Second Tactical Air Force.

The RCAF squadrons were manned by Canadian personnel of the Royal Canadian Artillery and the RCAF, with brief secondment to the squadrons with pilots from the Royal Artillery; control was maintained in the UK by 70 Group, RAF Fighter Command.

The three squadrons deployed from RAF Andover, England, to the Netherlands, to Dunkirk in France, where the last Canadian 'shots' in Europe were fired, and later to occupied Germany.

In European theatres a squadron was generally assigned to each corps, but under command for technical matters of an RAF group.

17 AOP Flight operated Auster Mark III aircraft in support of the Australian Army in the Pacific Theatre from October 1944 until the end of the war.

[6] Postwar Auster AOP aircraft were reorganised into independent flights (probably because the RAF used Wing-Commanders, equivalent to Lieutenant-Colonels, to command squadrons while the army insisted on a major's command) including 1903 Flight in Korea that had artillery pilots from several Commonwealth countries.

All Auster AOP units were transferred to the Army Air Corps when it was formed in September 1957, with AAC squadrons using numbers starting with 651.

Several Taylorcraft Austers formed, with other civil light aircraft, part of the initial equipment of the Sherut Avir, formed in November 1947 as the air component of the Jewish paramilitary organisation Haganah, which later became part of the Israeli Air Force.

Now restored to original authentic RAF WWII D Day factory config including camouflage between 2006-2012 by Erich and Matthias Lemmerer; Aircraft based in Austria;