To support the effort, the Australian Government offered aircraft and aircrews to bolster the contribution of the United Kingdom's Royal Air Force (RAF).

[1] Due to the inability of the RAF to fully crew its own Dakotas, the decision was made for the Australian contribution to be limited to aircrew who would utilise British aircraft.

[2] The Berlin Airlift Squadron was formed at RAAF Richmond in August 1948 from ten Douglas Dakota crews drawn from No.

[5] After receiving training at RAF Bassingbourn in the UK,[6] the aircrew moved to Lübeck in the British Zone of Allied-occupied Germany on 14 and 15 September.

[4] To increase the payloads of each sortie, co-pilots were removed from the crews and were eventually sent back to the United Kingdom, to ferry several Bristol Freighter aircraft, which had been recently purchased by the RAAF, to Australia.