The Path Finder Force (PFF) was colloquially known as the Pathfinders but officially it was 8 Group. A target-marking force, it was one of the most important Groups in RAF Bomber Command during the Second World War. One of its Lancaster squadrons was 97 Squadron which, for its year with the PFF, was stationed at RAF Station Bourn in Cambridgeshire from April 1943 to April 1944.

The leader of the PFF was a brilliant Australian airman, Air Commodore Donald Bennett, who can be seen in two of the photographs below. From June 1943, the Pathfinder HQ was in Castle Hill House in Huntingdon, within easy reach of all the Pathfinder airfields.