…... had got to Halfway House from which they filtered to Halfaya and Bardia. The Squadron therefore moved to the Halfaya ALG in preparation for the attack on Bardia.
We were now achieving air superiority, although the forward troops were still being bombed regularly, and this enabled the Squadron to carry out mosaics of Bardia, Tobruk and El Adem defences, and these photographs, taken every day or so enabled overprints for maps to be made giving gun positions, strong points, anti-tank ditches etc, and copies of the photographs were given to the units preparing for the attack. During the remaining days before the attack on Bardia the Squadron continued its reconnaissance duties, reporting all additional defence works, especially mine laying, by the besieged Italians. This was far from being an easy task as all aircraft approaching the Bardia defences were met by heavy anti-aircraft fire. On 28th December, shortly before the attack, the following special order of appreciation was received from General Wavell: “The GOC wishes to express his appreciation of the work done recently by 208 AC Squadron. In particular he would like to mention the very excellent photographs taken of the Bardia area, and the consistently good reports obtained from visual recce, all of which are proving of the greatest value to the Army”.
At dawn on 3rd January, 1941 the 
6th Australian Division, supported by tanks and artillery, attacked Bardia. The role of the Squadron during this battle was basically twofold. Firstly it was to carry out tactical reconnaissance flights over Bardia to locate and report by two-way W/T the
disposition of our own troops; secondly it was to carry out artillery reconnaissance, known as Arty-Rs, to provide visual assistance to our batteries in finding their targets. In addition a Hurricane was required periodically to recce the area west of Bardia to Tobruk to observe enemy movement in that direction. The business of recognising one’s own troops had always posed problems in the past, particularly when the latter were stationary, and so on this occasion our troops were instructed to lay out a white cross when halted in an effort to assist Squadron pilots.
