No. 6 Squadron (Dragons) is a fighter squadron and is equipped with Jaguar IM/IS and based at Jamnagar Air Force Station.

History

No. 6 Squadron is one of the ten senior

squadron Squadron may refer to: * Squadron (army), a military unit of cavalry, tanks, or equivalent subdivided into troops or tank companies * Squadron (aviation), a military unit that consists of three or four flights with a total of 12 to 24 aircraft, de ...

s of the

Indian Air Force The Indian Air Force (IAF) is the air arm of the Indian Armed Forces. Its complement of personnel and aircraft assets ranks third amongst the air forces of the world. Its primary mission is to secure Indian airspace and to conduct aerial w ...

. Formed prior to independence, its varied roles have included air-sea rescue, counter-air, fighter- reconnaissance, maritime reconnaissance, maritime strike,

target towing A target tug is an aircraft which tows an unmanned drone, a fabric drogue or other kind of target, for the purposes of gun or missile target practice. Target tugs are often conversions of transport and utility aircraft, as well as obsolescent com ...

and transport. The squadron was formed as a fighter-reconnaissance unit at Trichinopoly (now

Tiruchirapally Tiruchirappalli () ( formerly Trichinopoly in English), also called Tiruchi or Trichy, is a major tier II city in the Indian state of Tamil Nadu and the administrative headquarters of Tiruchirappalli district. The city is credited with bein ...

) on 1 December 1942 under the command of Squadron Leader (later Air Commodore) Mehar Singh. It participated in the Indian Air Force's tenth anniversary review at Ambala, and received an award for "the best looking aircraft". The squadron continued working-up, until November that year. In November 1943, flying Hawker Hurricane FR.IIb No 6 Squadron IAF moved to

Cox's Bazar Cox's Bazar (; bn, কক্সবাজার, Kôksbajar; ) is a city, fishing port, tourism centre, and district headquarters in Southeastern Bangladesh. It is located south of the city of Chittagong. Cox's Bazar is also known by the na ...

as a part of the

RAF Third Tactical Air Force The RAF Third Tactical Air Force (Third TAF), which was formed in South Asia in December 1943, was one of three tactical air forces formed by the Royal Air Force (RAF) during the Second World War. It was made up of squadrons and personnel from ...

(Third TAF) for the Second Arakan Campaign. During this campaign, No 6 Squadron was the only specialist reconnaissance unit available to support the Fourteenth Army on this front, earning the name "The Eyes of the Fourteenth Army". They were also dubbed "the Arakan Twins" for flying in the standard

tactical reconnaissance Aerial reconnaissance is reconnaissance for a military or strategic purpose that is conducted using reconnaissance aircraft. The role of reconnaissance can fulfil a variety of requirements including artillery spotting, the collection of ima ...

pairing of Leader and Weaver. Returning from his Arakan Front visit in mid-January 1944, General Sir William Slim, GOC Fourteenth Army, wrote in his memoirs how impressed he was with this reconnaissance squadron. For services during the squadron's tour of operations, Flight-Lieutenant Rawal Singh was awarded the

MBE Mbe may refer to: * Mbé, a town in the Republic of the Congo * Mbe Mountains Community Forest, in Nigeria * Mbe language, a language of Nigeria * Mbe' language, language of Cameroon * ''mbe'', ISO 639 code for the extinct Molala language Molal ...

, and Sergeant BM Kothari, the head of the photographic section, received the

British Empire Medal The British Empire Medal (BEM; formerly British Empire Medal for Meritorious Service) is a British and Commonwealth award for meritorious civil or military service worthy of recognition by the Crown. The current honour was created in 1922 to ...

. In addition, Flying Officer (later Air Commodore) JD Aquino and Pilot Officer (later Wing Commander) LRD Blunt were commended by the Air Officer Commanding.

Assignments

* Burma Campaign *

Indo-Pakistani War of 1965 The Indo-Pakistani War of 1965 or the Second Kashmir War was a culmination of skirmishes that took place between April 1965 and September 1965 between Pakistan and India. The conflict began following Pakistan's Operation Gibraltar, which was d ...

* Indo-Pakistani War of 1971

Aircraft

References

006 Alec Trevelyan (006) is a fictional character and the main antagonist in the 1995 James Bond film ''GoldenEye'', the first film to feature actor Pierce Brosnan as Bond. Trevelyan is portrayed by actor Sean Bean. The likeness of Bean as Alec T ...

Military units and formations of India in World War II 1942 establishments in India {{mil-aviation-stub