First World War No. 52 Squadron of the
Royal Flying Corps was formed as a Corps Reconnaissance squadron at
Hounslow Heath Aerodrome on 15 May 1916. It moved to France in November that year, being the first squadron equipped with the
Royal Aircraft Factory R.E.8. At first the squadron had little success with its R.E.8s, suffering many spinning accidents, and these losses affected morale so much that in January 1917 the squadron swapped its R.E.8s for the
Royal Aircraft Factory B.E.2s of
34 Squadron. It re-equipped again with R.E.8s in May, flying in support of the
allied offensives at Ypres that summer. In March 1918 it suffered heavy losses flying ground attack sorties against the
German Spring Offensive. The squadron became part of the
Royal Air Force when the Royal Flying Corps merged with the
Royal Naval Air Service on 1 April 1918, continuing in the Corps Reconnaissance role, for the rest of the war. It returned to the United Kingdom in February 1919, disbanding at Lopcombe Corner on 23 October 1919.
Reformation No 52 Squadron reformed at
RAF Abingdon on 18 January 1937 from a nucleus provided by
15 Squadron. It was initially equipped with
Hawker Hind biplane light bombers, these being replaced by
Fairey Battle monoplanes from November 1937. 1937–38 The squadron reformed on 1 July 1941 at
RAF Habbaniya in Iraq as a maintenance unit. Although it had no aircrew, it did have 21
Hawker Audaxes on charge, which were occasionally flown by members of other units based at Habbaniya on reconnaissance missions. having operated within
RAF Coastal Command from 20 February 1944.
Transport squadron On 1 July 1944,
353 Squadron, a transport squadron equipped with a mix of
Lockheed Hudsons and
Douglas Dakotas based at
Dum Dum near
Calcutta, India, was split into two, with the Dakota equipped 'C' and 'D' Flights becoming 52 Squadron. By the time flights over the Hump route to China finished in December 1945, the Squadron had flown 830 crossings of the Himalayas, carrying 3,277 passengers, 1,916,443 lb (871,100 kg) of cargo and 454,834 lb (20,380 kg) of mail for the loss of one aircraft. The squadron moved to Mingladon in Burma in October 1946, but transferred to Singapore in July 1947 following a coup. From here it was soon involved in 'Operation Firedog'. Dakotas were replaced by Valettas in 1951 and based at RAAF Butterworth these continued to be used on a regular passenger run between Singapore and Butterworth until unreliability forced cessation of passenger carrying. The squadron continued to operate, notably from Kuching dropping supplies to the jungle troops, mainly
Gurkhas, fighting the Indonesian troops in the confrontation war until disbanded on 25 April 1966. The squadron reformed, for the final time so far, on 1 December 1966 at Seletar. It was still employed on general transport duties but was now equipped with Andover aircraft, which it used until disbanding on 31 December 1969. Tasks were found for the squadron with regular flights to
RAAF Butterworth, a twice weekly flight to
RAF Kuching,
Seria (
Anduki) and
RAF Labuan, with the aircraft returning after a night stop. The latter flight was also utilised to ferry Gurkha troops to Singapore for onward flights to
Nepal. Training and liaison flight were undertaken around the region including Hong Kong, Saigon and Bangkok. In 1968, the squadron was relocated to
RAF Changi and was disbanded in January 1970. ==References==