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25 Besides Ward and Trent, the RNZAF had a third VC winner in Flying Officer Trigg, who received a posthumous award operating with No 200 Sqn. Of particular interest is that Trigg%u2019s VC citation relied on evidence from Oberleutnant zur See Klemens Schamong %u2013 the skipper of the U8Boat that Trigg%u2019s crew sank. Other awards for gallantry totalled nearly 1,300, but the cost to a country of less than four million was the loss of 4,000 airmen and women. The Canadian contribution to the RAF in the war was the largest of all the Commonwealth countries. In addition to its pivotal role in the training process, it contributed a large number of operational squadrons, formed a bomber group and then assumed the financial burden of supporting much of its own war effort in the UK. When war broke out, there was an RCAF liaison officer based in London, fifteen Canadians undertaking training courses in the UK and three officers on %u2018exchange%u2019. However, the number of Canadians serving in the RAF actually exceeded the total officer strength of the RCAF. Two army co8operation squadrons were immediately earmarked to accompany 1st Canadian Division to Europe and AVM George Croil, the CAS, urged that the RCAF should form an overseas command comprising a Fighter and a Bomber Group %u2013 each of six squadrons %u2013 to serve under RAF command in the field. Priority, however, had to be given to setting up the air training facilities that Canada had undertaken to provide and this absorbed much of the RCAF%u2019s capacity throughout 1940. Nevertheless, the army co 8operation units, Nos 110 and 112 Sqns, were sent to the UK, although the fall of France precluded their being employed in their intended role. No 1 Sqn arrived in the UK in June 1940 and, equipped with Hurricanes, it flew with 11 Group during the Battle of Britain, engaging the Luftwaffe for the first time on 26 August. In the months which followed, claims for thirty enemy aircraft destroyed, eight probables and thirty8four damaged were upheld for the loss of ten aircraft and three pilots killed. However, of the ninety Canadians who served in the battle a total of twenty were killed. To conform with the Article XV numbering policy, and to avoid confusion with similarly numbered RAF units, the three RCAF squadrons already in the UK were redesignated as Nos 4008402 Sqns in March 1941, but it was decided not to renumber two RAF