Between the wars According to the squadron's entry in
Flying Units of the RAF by Alan Lake, No. 617 Squadron was allocated the
unit identification code MZ for the period April to September 1939, even though the unit did not actually exist at the time.
Second World War The squadron was formed on 21 March 1943 at
RAF Scampton on
Avro Lancaster heavy bombers. It was formed under great secrecy for the specific task of attacking three major dams that contributed water and power to the Ruhr industrial region in
Nazi Germany: the
Möhne,
Eder, and
Sorpe. The plan was given the codename
Operation Chastise and carried out on 17 May 1943. The squadron had to develop the tactics to deploy
Barnes Wallis's "
Bouncing bomb", and undertook some of its training over the dams of the
Upper Derwent Valley in Derbyshire, as the towers on the dam walls were similar to those to be found on some of the target dams in Germany. The squadron's badge, approved by
King George VI, depicts the bursting of a dam in commemoration of Chastise. The squadron's chosen motto was , a humorous
double entendre on a famous saying of Madame de Pompadour to King Louis XV, made on the loss at the
Battle of Rossbach by the French. The original commander of No. 617 Squadron,
Wing Commander Guy Gibson, was awarded the
Victoria Cross for his part in the raid. visiting No. 617 Squadron in 1943 After the raid, Gibson was withdrawn from flying (due to the high number of raids he had been on) and went on a publicity tour.
Wing Commander George Holden became commanding officer (CO) in July, but he was shot down and killed on his fourth mission,
Operation Garlic in September 1943, in an attack on the
Dortmund-Ems Canal; he had four of Gibson's crew with him.
H. B. "Mick" Martin took command temporarily, before
Leonard Cheshire took over as CO. Cheshire developed and personally took part in the special target marking techniques required, which went far beyond the precision delivered by the standard
Pathfinder units – by the end he was marking the targets from a
Mustang fighter. He was also awarded the VC. On 15 July 1943, 12 aircraft of the squadron took off from Scampton to attack targets in Northern Italy. All aircraft attacked and proceeded to North Africa without loss. The targets were
San Polo d'Enza and
Arquata Scrivia power stations; it was hoped that the attacks would delay German troops who were travelling down into Italy on the electrified railway system to support the Italian front. The operation met little opposition but the targets were obscured by valley haze and were not destroyed. The 12 crews returned to Scampton on 25 July from North Africa after bombing
Leghorn docks on the return journey. The raid on Leghorn Docks was not a great success, due to mist shrouding the target. On 29 July 1943 nine aircraft took off from Scampton to drop leaflets on Milan, Bologna, Genoa and Turin in Italy. All aircraft completed the mission and landed safely in Blida, North Africa. The UK Government considered using No. 617 Squadron to target the Italian leader
Mussolini in July or August 1943. The British believed if Mussolini was killed it might take Italy out of the war. It would have been a flight carried out at extremely low level with the targets of Mussolini's headquarters and residence in Rome. Neither of these targets were within 1,500 yards of the Vatican, which the Allies had promised not to damage. However within two weeks of the plan being suggested,
Mussolini was ousted by his opponents and replaced by
Pietro Badoglio, leading to an armistice with the Allies in September. Throughout the rest of the war, the squadron continued in a specialist and precision-bombing role, including the use of the enormous
"Tallboy" and
"Grand Slam" ground-penetrating
earthquake bombs, on targets such as concrete U-boat shelters and bridges. Several failed attempts were made on The Dortmund-Ems Canal in 1943 (
Operation Garlic); it was finally breached with Tallboys in September 1944. In March 1945 the squadron used the Grand Slam bomb for the first time, against the
Bielefeld viaduct, wrecking it. The viaduct had withstood 54 previous attacks without being permanently neutralized. The Squadron's skills in precision flying were also used in the Normandy invasion, as part of an effort to
deceive the Germans as to the location of the Allied invasion. Beginning on the night before the D-day landings, the Squadron dropped
thin strips of aluminium foil (called Window) over the waters off
Cap d'Antifer, about from the D-Day landings. The strips were dropped in vast numbers, in carefully choreographed patterns, over many hours, to create on German radar an illusion of a huge approaching naval fleet, even though the ships were non-existent. The Squadron practised the technique at
Tantallon Castle in Scotland, using captured German
Würzburg,
Freya, and
Seetakt radars. with its crew (including OC Wg. Cdr.
J. B. Tait) the day after the successful attack against
Tirpitz A series of attacks caused the disabling and sinking of
Tirpitz, a major German battleship that had been moved into a fjord in northern Norway where she threatened the
Arctic convoys and was too far north to be attacked by air from the UK. She had already been damaged by an attack by
Royal Navy midget submarines and a series of attacks from carrier-borne aircraft of the
Fleet Air Arm, but both attacks had failed to sink her. The task was given to
No. IX and No. 617 Squadrons; they were deployed to
Yagodnik, near
Archangel a staging base in Russia to attack
Tirpitz with Tallboy bombs. On 15 September 1944, the RAF bombers struck the battleship in the forecastle, which rendered her unseaworthy, so she was sent to the
Tromsø fjord where temporary repairs were made so she was anchored as a floating battery. This fjord was in range of bombers operating from Scotland and from there, in October, she was attacked again, but cloud cover thwarted the attack. Finally on 12 November 1944, the two squadrons attacked
Tirpitz. The first bombs missed their target, but following aircraft scored two direct hits in quick succession. Within ten minutes of the first bomb hitting the
Tirpitz, she suffered a magazine explosion at her "C" turret and
capsized killing 1,000 of her 1,700 crew. All three RAF attacks on
Tirpitz were led by Wing Commander
J. B. "Willy" Tait, who had succeeded Cheshire as CO of No. 617 Squadron in July 1944. Among pilots participating in the raids was
Flight Lieutenant John Leavitt, an American who piloted one of the 31 Lancasters. Leavitt's aircraft dropped one of the bombs that hit
Tirpitz dead centre. Despite both squadrons claiming that it was their bombs that sank the Tirpitz, it was the
Tallboy bomb, dropped from a No. IX Squadron Lancaster WS-Y (
LM220) piloted by Flying Officer Dougie Tweddle that is attributed to the sinking of the warship. F/O Tweddle was awarded the
Distinguished Flying Cross for his part in the operations against
Tirpitz. During the
Second World War the Squadron carried out 1,599 operational sorties with the loss of 32 aircraft.
Cold War (1946–1981) |leftAfter the end of the Second World War, the squadron replaced its Lancasters with
Avro Lincolns, following those in 1952 with the
English Electric Canberra jet bomber. The squadron was deployed to
Malaya for four months in 1955, returning to
RAF Binbrook to be disbanded on 15 December 1955. Reformed at
RAF Scampton on 1 May 1958 as part of
RAF Bomber Command's
V-bomber force maintaining the UK's strategic nuclear deterrent, the squadron was equipped with the
Avro Vulcan B1 from August 1960. By 23 May 1961, its aircraft were the upgraded Vulcan B1A fitted with the
electronic countermeasures tail pod. The squadron's assigned role was high-level strategic bombing with a variety of free fall nuclear bombs. These may have included
Blue Danube,
Red Beard,
Violet Club the Interim Megaton Weapon,
Yellow Sun Mk.1 and certainly
Yellow Sun Mk2. American bombs were also supplied to the RAF V-bombers for a short period under the
Project E arrangements., 1962 The squadron began almost immediately to upgrade to the Vulcan B2, taking delivery of the first on 1 September 1961, although its high-level strategic bombing role remained unchanged until the advent of effective Soviet
Surface-to-Air Missiles forced Bomber Command to reassign V-bombers from high-altitude operations to low-level penetration operations in March 1963, when the squadron's Vulcans adopted a mission profile that included a 'pop-up' manoeuvre from to above for safe release of Blue Steel. Vulcans were configured for the
Blue Steel stand-off bomb and 617 Squadron was the first to be declared operational with it in August 1962, until in January 1970 the squadron's eight Vulcan B2 aircraft were re-equipped with the new strategic laydown bomb,
WE.177B which improved aircraft survivability by enabling aircraft to remain at low level during weapon release. Following the transfer of responsibility for the nuclear deterrent to the Royal Navy, the squadron was reassigned to
SACEUR for tactical strike missions. In a high-intensity European war the squadron's role was to support land forces on the Continent by striking deep into enemy-held areas beyond the forward edge of the battlefield, striking at enemy concentrations and infrastructure, with WE.177 tactical nuclear weapons, should a conflict escalate to that stage. The squadron's eight aircraft were allocated eight WE.177 nuclear bombs. As the Vulcan's bomb bay was configured to carry only one, and assuming that RAF staff planners had factored in their usual allowance for attrition in the early conventional phase of a continental war, leaving sufficient surviving aircraft to deliver the full stockpile of nuclear weapons, it is a reasonable conclusion that the Vulcan force was held in reserve for nuclear strike duties only. The squadron's Vulcan B2s served mainly in that low-level penetration role until disbandment on 31 December 1981.
Tornado GR (1983–2014) , July 2013|thumb|left The squadron reformed on 1 January 1983 at
RAF Marham, re-equipped with twelve
Panavia Tornado GR1. No. 617 Squadron was deployed to King Faisal Air Base, Saudi Arabia following the 1990 Iraqi Invasion of Kuwait, it returned to the UK in November 1990 and replaced by 16/20 Sqn. In 1993, No. 617 Squadron began the changeover to anti-shipping and by May 1994 was operating from
RAF Lossiemouth assigned to
SACLANT, flying the Tornado GR1B with the
Sea Eagle missile. In December 1994,
Flight Lieutenant Jo Salter became the first female combat-ready fast jet pilot. In 1995, crews from No. 617 Squadron deployed in support of Operation Warden. In 2003, the Squadron sent several aircraft to the
Ali Al Salem Air Base, Kuwait and
Al Udeid Air Base, Qatar, as part of
Operation Telic joining airframes from II Squadron, IX Squadron, XIII Squadron, 31 Squadron and 12 Squadron (a total of 30 Tornado GR4/GR4A's were deployed) where they were the first squadron to use the new MBDA Storm Shadow. In July 2009,
the Dambusters deployed to
Kandahar Airfield,
Afghanistan, as part of
Operation Herrick in order to provide support for
No. 12 (Bomber) Squadron. While deployed,
the Dambusters were the RAF squadron who helped the Tornado GR fleet surpass 1,000,000 flying hours in June 2011. In July 2011, the squadron took part in Operation Ellamy In July 2013, it was announced that No. 617 Squadron would become the first operational RAF unit to receive the
Lockheed Martin F-35B Lightning. No. 617 Squadron disbanded on 28 March 2014 as part of the draw-down of the Tornado force.
F-35B Lightning (2017–present) of No. 617 Squadron on their delivery flight to the UK|right Beginning in 2016,
the Dambusters started their training for conversion to the F-35B ahead of reforming as the first British front line squadron with the Lightning. The squadron worked up at
Marine Corps Air Station Beaufort,
South Carolina, in late 2017 and early 2018 before reforming on 18 April 2018. On 6 June 2018, four No. 617 Squadron Lightnings (
ZM145,
ZM146,
ZM147 and
ZM148), supported by three
Airbus Voyagers and an
Airbus Atlas C1, made an eight-hour flight across the Atlantic to become the first of the UK's aircraft to be based permanently at RAF Marham. On 10 July, the squadron participated in the RAF100 flypast over London with three F-35Bs. On 3 August, five more F-35Bs arrived at RAF Marham for
the Dambusters. No. 617 Squadron was declared 'combat ready' on 10 January 2019.
The Dambusters underwent their first F-35 deployment on 22 May 2019 when six Lightnings deployed to
RAF Akrotiri, Cyprus, for six weeks as part of Exercise Lightning Dawn. On 16 June, No. 617 Squadron carried out the first RAF F-35 operational mission when two Lightnings conducted a patrol over Syria as part of
Operation Shader. On 25 June, No. 617 Squadron's F-35Bs participated in 'Exercise Tri Lightning' alongside
United States Air Force F-35As of the
4th Fighter Squadron and
Israeli Air Force F-35Is of
140 Squadron over the eastern
Mediterranean Sea. Four F-35B Lightnings returned home to RAF Marham on 2 July, while the other two arrived at
Amendola Air Base to carry out bilateral training with the
Italian Air Force, including the local F-35As of
32º Stormo. Three Lightnings departed RAF Marham on 9 October to MCAS Beaufort in preparation for Westlant 19, embarking upon
HMS Queen Elizabeth for the first time alongside
No. 17 Test and Evaluation Squadron on 13 October. On 22 January 2020,
the Dambusters departed Marham for
Exercise Red Flag at
Nellis Air Force Base,
Nevada, their first with the Lightning. Between September and November 2020,
the Dambusters hosted
United States Marine Corps F-35Bs from
VMFA-211 who deployed to RAF Marham to work up on HMS
Queen Elizabeth ahead of the carrier's deployment in 2021. In May 2021, No. 617 Squadron embarked eight F-35B Lightnings on board HMS
Queen Elizabeth as part of
Carrier Strike Group 2021 (CSG21), operating alongside
VMFA-211 as the fixed wing component. On 16 November 2021, one of the squadron's F-35B fighters crashed during
operations in the Mediterranean. The pilot ejected safely. In late February 2026, six F-35B aircraft from No. 617 Squadron deployed from Marham to Akrotiri due to increasing tensions in the region. Shortly after the outbreak of the
2026 Iran war, one of these F-35Bs shot down two Iranian
unmanned aerial vehicles while operating over Jordan in company with two
Eurofighter Typhoons and a Voyager; this is the first combat shoot-down for a British F-35 and was achieved with two
ASRAAM missiles. ==Aircraft operated==