Royal Naval Air Service 1 September 1914 - 21 June 1915 5 November 1916 - 1 April 1918 Royal Air Force 1 April 1918 - 21 January 1920 1 March 1920 - 1 April 1923 1 January 1929 - 1 September 1956 1 November 1958 - 31 December 1977 16 October 1996 - 14 September 2014
Western Front, 1914-1918 Independent Force & Germany, 1914-1918 Aegean, 1915 Helles ANZAC Suvla Arras Lys Somme, 1918 Hindenburg Line East Africa, 1940-1941 Mediterranean, 1941-1943 Iraq, 1941 Habbaniya Syria, 1941 Egypt & Libya, 1941-1942 North Africa, 1943 Sicily, 1943 Eastern Waters, 1944-1945 Burma, 1945
Insignia
Squadron codes
PP (Apr 1939 – Sep 1939)[2] NT (Sep 1939 – Mar 1940)[2] CJ (Feb 1945 – Apr 1951)[2] B (Apr 1951 - 1956)[2] 203 (1956 – Sep 1956, Nov 1956 - 1966)[2]
Military unit
No. 203 Squadron RAF was originally formed as No. 3 SquadronRoyal Naval Air Service. It was renumbered No. 203 when the Royal Air Force was formed on 1 April 1918.
History
First World War
The squadron can be traced to The Eastchurch Squadron, which formed Eastchurch in February 1914.[3] After mobilisation at the start of the First World War it was renamed No. 3 Wing RNAS, and then later as No. 3 (Naval) Squadron. In March 1915, the squadron, under the command of Commander Charles Samson, moved to the island of Tenedos, and began operating 18 aircraft in support of the Gallipoli Campaign. In the first weeks of the campaign they took over 700 photographs of the peninsula, and conducted other ground support tasks including spotting for naval gunfire, and reporting the movements of Ottoman troops. On 21 June 1915, the squadron became No. 3 Wing RNAS and was moved to Imbros.[4] On 19 November, during a raid against a railway junction near the Maritsa River in Bulgaria, Squadron Commander Richard Bell Davies won the Victoria Cross for landing to rescue a pilot who had been shot down, in the face of intense enemy fire. The squadron returned to the UK at the end of 1915, and was disbanded.[3]
Shortly before the start of the war the squadron was re-equipped with Short Singapore III, long-range maritime patrol flying boat.[7] and in 1940 with Bristol Blenheim, a twin-engined monoplane light bomber. The squadron flew patrols over the Red Sea from Basra. At the end of 1941 the squadron operated Bristol Blenheim IV, undertaking reconnaissance over the Mediterranean from various bases in Western Egypt, flying patrols from the Libyan coast out as far as Crete. In 1942 the squadron re-equipped with Martin Baltimore, an American twin-engined light attack bomber, also used as a reconnaissance aircraft and was involved in operations in Syria. In 1943 the squadron was posted to RAF Santacruz,[8] in Bombay (now called Mumbai), then British India and was re-equipped with Vickers Wellington, a twin-engined long range medium bomber, to fly coastal patrols. The squadron converted to Consolidated Liberator aircraft in November 1944 and began anti-shipping patrols over the Bay of Bengal.
The squadron was reformed in October 1996, when the Westland Sea King Operational Conversion Unit (OCU) at RAF St Mawgan in Cornwall was redesignated 203(R) Squadron as a reserve unit. In 2008, 203(R) Squadron relocated to RAF Valley in Anglesey, maintaining its role as the Sea King OCU and operating the Sea King HAR.3 until it was disbanded on 14 September 2014 following the withdrawal of the Sea King from RAF service.[12][13]
Halley, J. J. (1988). The Squadrons of the Royal Air Force & Commonwealth 1918-1988. Tonbridge, UK: Air-Britain (Historians). ISBN978-0-85130-164-8.
Rawlings, J. D. R. (1984). History of the Royal Air Force. New York: Crescent Books. ISBN978-0-517-46249-2.
Shores, C.; Franks, N.; Guest, R. (1990). Above The Trenches: A Complete Record of the Fighter Aces and Units of the British Empire Air Forces 1915–1920. London, UK: Grub Street. ISBN0-948817-19-4.
"Short Rangoon". Aeromilitaria. No. 2. Air-Britain. 1994. pp. 31–36.
Sturtivant, R.; Page, G.; Cronin, D. (1992). Royal Navy Aircraft Serials and Units 1911 to 1919. Tonbridge, UK: Air-Britain (Historians). ISBN978-0-85130-191-4.