No. 87 Squadron RAF was an aircraft squadron of the

Royal Air Force The Royal Air Force (RAF) is the United Kingdom's air and space force. It was formed towards the end of the First World War on 1 April 1918, becoming the first independent air force in the world, by regrouping the Royal Flying Corps (RFC) an ...

during the First World War and Second World War.

World War I

87 Squadron

Royal Flying Corps "Through Adversity to the Stars" , colors = , colours_label = , march = , mascot = , anniversaries = , decorations ...

(RFC) was first formed on 1 September 1917 at

Upavon Upavon is a rural village and civil parish in the county of Wiltshire, England. As its name suggests, it is on the upper portion of the River Avon which runs from north to south through the village. It is on the north edge of Salisbury Plain ...

from elements of the Central Flying School. On 17 December 1917, it moved to

Hounslow Heath Aerodrome Hounslow Heath Aerodrome was a grass airfield, operational 1914–1920. It was in the London borough of Hounslow, and hosted the British Empire's first scheduled daily international commercial flights, in 1919. The site today includes the main r ...

and was equipped with

Sopwith Dolphin The Sopwith 5F.1 Dolphin was a British fighter aircraft manufactured by the Sopwith Aviation Company. It was used by the Royal Flying Corps and its successor, the Royal Air Force, during the First World War. The Dolphin entered service on t ...

s and

S.E.5A The Royal Aircraft Factory S.E.5 is a British biplane fighter aircraft of the First World War. It was developed at the Royal Aircraft Factory by a team consisting of Henry Folland, John Kenworthy and Major Frank Goodden. It was one of the ...

s, moving on to France in April 1918. After the armistice, the squadron moved back to England and was disbanded at

RAF Ternhill Royal Air Force Tern Hill or RAF Tern Hill was a Royal Air Force station at Ternhill in Shropshire, England, near the towns of Newport and Market Drayton. The station closed in 1976, with the technical and administrative site transferring t ...

on 24 June 1919.Halley (1988) The squadron had seven

aces ACeS (PT Asia Cellular Satellite) was a regional satellite telecommunications company based in Jakarta, Indonesia. It offered GSM-like satellite telephony services to Asian market. The coverage area included Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand, Philip ...

, in Arthur Vigers DFC, Leslie Hollinghurst, Henry Biziou, Joseph Callaghan,

Charles Darwin Charles Robert Darwin ( ; 12 February 1809 – 19 April 1882) was an English naturalist, geologist, and biologist, widely known for his contributions to evolutionary biology. His proposition that all species of life have descended ...

Herbert Joseph Larkin Herbert Joseph Larkin, (8 October 1894 – 10 June 1972) was an Australian flying ace of the First World War credited with 11 confirmed victories. Postwar, he became a pioneering aviator and aircraft manufacturer in Australia. He served in the Ro ...

, Alexander Pentland, and Charles Edward Worthington. The squadron's "lazy-S" style insignia in use late in World War I on its Dolphins is said to have been authorised for use by CO Callaghan, whose pre-war time living in Texas, where

livestock branding Livestock branding is a technique for marking livestock so as to identify the owner. Originally, livestock branding only referred to hot branding large stock with a branding iron, though the term now includes alternative techniques. Other f ...

ranch A ranch (from es, rancho/Mexican Spanish) is an area of land, including various structures, given primarily to ranching, the practice of raising grazing livestock such as cattle and sheep. It is a subtype of a farm. These terms are most ofte ...

livestock was common there at that time, could have inspired his choice of squadron insignia.

World War II

Aircraft of the Royal Air Force 1939-1945- Hawker Hurricane

87 Squadron was re-formed on 15 March 1937 at

RAF Tangmere RAF Tangmere was a Royal Air Force station located in Tangmere, England, famous for its role in the Battle of Britain, and one of several stations near Chichester, West Sussex. The famous Second World War aces Wing Commander Douglas Bader, a ...

from elements of

No. 54 Squadron RAF Number 54 Squadron (sometimes written as No. LIV Squadron) is a squadron of the Royal Air Force based at RAF Waddington, Lincolnshire. On 1 September 2005, it took on the role of Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance ( ISR) Operational ...

, operating the

Hawker Fury The Hawker Fury is a British biplane fighter aircraft used by the Royal Air Force in the 1930s. It was a fast, agile aircraft, and the first interceptor in RAF service capable of speed higher than 200 mph (321 kmh). It was the fighter co ...

. At the outbreak of the Second World War, the squadron was part of the air element of the British Expeditionary Force in France, equipped with

Hawker Hurricanes The Hawker Hurricane is a British single-seat fighter aircraft of the 1930s–40s which was designed and predominantly built by Hawker Aircraft Ltd. for service with the Royal Air Force (RAF). It was overshadowed in the public consciousness by ...

. Flight Lieutenant

Ian Gleed Wing Commander Ian Richard Gleed (3 July 1916 – 16 April 1943), nicknamed "Widge," was a Royal Air Force (RAF) pilot and flying ace credited with the destruction of 13 enemy aircraft during the Second World War. He served in the Battle of Fran ...

was posted to the squadron as a replacement pilot on 17 May 1940 and became an ace in two days. He took command of the squadron in December 1940 when it was based at

RAF Charmy Down RAF Charmy Down is a former Royal Air Force (RAF) station in Somerset, England, approximately north-northeast of Bath and west of London. Opened in 1941, it was used initially by the RAF and from 1943 by the United States Army Air Forces, prim ...

. John Strachey MP served as the intelligence officer for the squadron during the Battle of Britain. On 23 July Flt Lt AWG Le Hardy (Tony) took command before being sent on Special Operations as the Air Liaison Officer to the Military Mission to Marshal Tito on the island of VIS off the Dalmatian coast of Croatia. Squadron Spitfires were deployed to the island in support of the commando forces from the airfield organised by A/Sqn Ldr Le Hardy for operations in support of the partisan forces in the Balkans for which he was decorated with the OBE, the youngest officer to receive that award, aged 21. The airfield became a valuable destination for damaged Allied Aircraft saving many lives. . In July 1944 87 Squadron became one of two RAF Squadrons to join No. 8 Wing SAAF (the other being RAF 185 Squadron) and began fighter-bomber operations supporting the fighting in Italy as well as taking part in offensive sweeps across the Balkans from its detached Italian bases. It continued in this role in the Italian Campaign until the end of the war.

The Cold War

87 Squadron was again re-formed as part of the 2nd Tactical Air Force in Germany on 1 January 1952 at

RAF Wahn Cologne Bonn Airport (german: Flughafen Köln/Bonn 'Konrad Adenauer') is the international airport of Germany's fourth-largest city Cologne, and also serves Bonn, former capital of West Germany. With around 12.4 million passengers passing thr ...

with the Gloster Meteor NF11, with the main tasking being the defence of the Ruhr, after five years it moved to

RAF Bruggen Royal Air Force Brüggen, more commonly known as RAF Brüggen, in Germany was a major station of the Royal Air Force until 15 June 2001. It was situated next to the village of Elmpt, approximately west of Düsseldorf on the Dutch-German bo ...

, and was equipped with the

Gloster Javelin The Gloster Javelin is a twin-engined T-tailed delta-wing subsonic night and all-weather interceptor aircraft that served with Britain's Royal Air Force from the mid-1950s until the late 1960s. The last aircraft design to bear the Gloster na ...

as an all-weather interceptor force until it was disbanded on 3 January 1961.

Aircraft

Notable pilots

World War I

* Charles J.W. Darwin * Herbert Larkin * Arthur Vigers

World War II

* Geoffrey Allard * Roland Beamont * John Dewar *

DSO DFC *

Derek Harland Ward Derek Harland Ward, (31 July 1917 – 17 June 1942) was a New Zealand flying ace of the Royal Air Force (RAF) during the Second World War. He was credited with six confirmed victories and one probable. Born in Whangarei, New Zealand, Ward jo ...

Notes

References

Royal Air Force Website - 87 Sqn History
* *Halley, James J. 1988. The Squadrons of the Royal Air Force & Commonwealth 1918–1988. Air Britain . * *

External links

087 087 Military units and formations established in 1917 Military units and formations disestablished in 1961 {{RAF-stub