802 Naval Air Squadron

802 Naval Air Squadron (802 NAS) was a Naval Air Squadron of the Royal Navy's Fleet Air Arm.

Early history

802 Squadron was formed on 3 April 1933 aboard by the merger of two independent Royal Air Force naval units, 408 (Fleet Fighter) Flight and 409 (Fleet Fighter) Flight. By 1939, 802 Squadron was operating from (Dekhelia) in Egypt where, like all Fleet Air Arm units, it was taken over by the Admiralty on 24 May 1939.

Aircraft

* Nimrod I S1579 571
* Osprey I K2783
* Osprey III K3643 549
* Osprey III Seaplane K3644 590

Second World War

In April 1940 802 Squadron was serving aboard ''Glorious'' with twelve Gloster Sea Gladiators when the ship was recalled to participate in the defence of Norway. The squadron ceased to exist after ''Glorious'' was sunk by the German battleships '' Scharnhorst'' and '' Gneisenau'' on 8 June 1940 during the defence of Norway.

Reformed from part of 804 Squadron on 21 November 1940 with Martlet Is, the squadron sub-flights embarked on in July 1941, with B flight serving on in August. In the following month the whole squadron was involved in Gibraltar escort convoys from ''Audacity'' from which it shot down four Focke-Wulf Fw 200's. The squadron was lost on 21 December 1941 when ''Audacity'' was sunk by .

The squadron was re-formed at Yeovilton in February 1942 with Hawker Sea Hurricane Ibs, before embarking on for escorting Arctic Convoy PQ 18 in September during which time five enemy aircraft were shot down and 17 damaged, in conjunction with 883 Squadron. In September, the squadron embarked on ''Avenger'' and provided fighter cover on the Algerian invasion beaches. While returning to the UK ''Avenger'' was torpedoed and sunk by on 15 November 1942.

The squadron lay dormant till May 1945 when reformed at Arbroath with 24 Supermarine Seafire L.IIIs. By VJ day, the squadron had spent a short period in , and had been anticipated to leave for the British Pacific Fleet with 9th Carrier Air Group.

Post-war service

By the summer of 1947, 802 Squadron had switched to Seafire XVs operating from . During the Korean War 802 Squadron was assigned to , and equipped with Hawker Sea Fury's. Squadron pilot Lieutenant "Hoagy" Carmichael shot down a Mikoyan-Gurevich MiG-15 on 9 August 1952. Carmichael achieved this feat during a dogfight which started when a formation of four Sea Furys under his command were attacked by eight MiGs during a fighter bomber mission over Chinnampo.

By the time of the Suez Crisis, 802 Squadron had transferred to , and was equipped with Sea Hawk FB3s – one of these aircraft lost the front of a drop tank to ground fire while the squadron was embarked aboard in September 1956. 802 Squadron re-equipped with Sea Hawk FB5s before transferring to the ''Ark Royal'' in May 1957. Following a trip to the United States, which included cross-operations with , 802 Squadron completed two tours in the Mediterranean, the second of these starting in September 1958 aboard , and ending with the disbandment of 802 Squadron at RNAS Lossiemouth on 10 April 1959. Plans to reform 802 Squadron at Yeovilton in 1979 with five British Aerospace Sea Harriers failed to materialise.Sturtivant p. 169

References

Citations

Bibliography

{{Royal Naval Air Squadrons

800 series Fleet Air Arm squadrons
Military units and formations established in 1933