Shiny Two still dazzling after more than a century of service

IT was January 2015 when II (AC) Squadron reformed at RAF Lossiemouth, making a return north of the border a century after establishing the first ‘air station’ at Montrose.

On February 13, 1913, five fixed wing BE2 aircraft left Farnborough on a 450-mile journey that took 13 days to complete, the occupants handed the task of finding a suitable site for the first military airfield in the UK. 

They picked land at Broomfield Farm just north of Montrose, and by the end of that year army engineers had built three hangars; No.2 Squadron moving into their new base early in 1914, a few months before the outbreak of the First World War. The squadron’s role was to protect the Royal Navy fleet located at Rosyth, Cromarty and Scapa Flow, the task handed to them by the then First Lord of the Admiralty, Winston Churchill.

Today they still defend the nation as part of the Quick Reaction Alert (North), QRA, the Typhoon becoming the 23rd aircraft type in the squadron’s century-plus history.

When the Royal Flying Corps, RFC, was formed in May, 1912, at Farnborough, No.2 Squadron became one of the three founding squadrons formed alongside, somewhat unsurprisingly, No. 1 and No. 3; No. 1 equipped with airships while No.2 and No.3 were handed fixed-wing aircraft.

(Royal Aircraft Factory B.E.2 biplane of the No. 2 Squadron, Royal Flying Corps at Montrose, Scotland)

No.2 was formed from a detachment of the Royal Engineers Air Battalion and among the first aircraft it was equipped with were Royal Aircraft B.E.2s, a prototype plane which performed a crucial service during the early part of World War One. No.2 Squadron were the first to fly across the Channel into France at the start of the Great War and were successful in reconnaissance, using cameras for the first time to take pictures of enemy troop positions.

The first RFC aircraft to land in France on August 13, 1914, was supposed to be piloted by the squadron commander, Major Charles Burke, at his insistence, but when he arrived, he spotted one his young pilots, Herbert Harvey-Kelly, already on the ground at Amiens having taken a shortcut. Major Burke was apparently the only No.2 squadron member unaware of Harvey-Kelly’s plans.   

One of the squadrons greatest tragedies occurred several months before the First World War began, with the limitations of early aircraft in adverse weather conditions the culprit, rather than any enemy fire.

In May 1914, the squadron was transferring in stages from Scotland south to Salisbury Plain, when a number of its aircraft hit a fog bank just south of the River Tees, soon after taking off from Seaton Carew beach, near Hartlepool. Footage is available of the squadron’s first commander, Major Charles Burke, being greeted by thousands at the beach the day before the tragedy; six aircraft were forced into emergency landings, five crash landing in fields near Northallerton in North Yorkshire with two deaths and several men injured. 

The two who lost their lives were 23-year-old Lt John Empson and air mechanic George Cudmore, 21.

In 1916 the squadrons planes were painted for the first time with triangles to allow them to be identified by friendly ground forces, a sign adopted as the squadron’s symbol that continues to this day.

With the RFC merging with the Royal Navy Air Service in 1918, the RAF was formed with No.2 Squadron a leading light, the squadron gaining its AC (army co-operation) title in the 1920s for operations during the partition of Ireland, when the country was divided into the Republican south and the six counties of Northern Ireland; the AC is reflected in the Squadron’s motto Hereward (guardian of the Army) and the Wake knot in its crest. 

Among operations between the wars, II (AC) were also stationed in China in 1927 after the British Concession in Hankou was invaded by nationalist forces seeking to unify the country. 

(A RAF Westland Lysander of No. 2 Squadron during the Second World War)

At the start of the Second World War, No.2 Squadron were flying Westland Lysanders and were moved to Abbeville in France, again flying reconnaissance missions until the Dunkirk evacuation. They then headed back to England and were based at Sawbridgeworth in Hertfordshire.

Ahead of D-Day, the squadron’s reconnaissance work was key to the Allied Forces push into France, with their work including providing shipping locations and German coastal positions, as well as seeking out V1 launch sites so they could be hit before the German’s flying bombs could wreak havoc on English cities.

After hostilities ended, the squadron soon moved to RAF Wunsdorf, remaining in Germany for almost 50 years at a number of stations, helping to spearhead NATO’s air defences against the Soviet threat. Among the aircraft operated by II (AC) post war was the Gloster Meteor, Britain’s first jet, the squadron concentrating on low-level reconnaissance.

(No. II (AC) Squadron SEPECAT Jaguar GR1s at RAF Wildenrath during 1978)

Whilst in Germany II (AC) flew a variety of fighters including Phantoms and Jaguars, and when they returned to the UK at RAF Marham in 1991, they were flying Tornados. Along with operations during both Gulf Wars in the 1990s and 2000s, II (AC) enforced the no-fly zones in Iraq in 1999, dropping air to surface munitions for the first time since the end of the Second World War. 

The squadron was also deployed in Afghanistan as part of Operation Herrick, and their reconnaissance role was utilised in the hunt for the missing Nigerian schoolgirls, kidnapped by terrorist group Boko Haram in 2014.

In 2012, a memorial dedicated to all who served in No.2 Squadron, and to those who lost their lives in service, was unveiled at the National Memorial Arboretum in Staffordshire – the design features a Roman numeral ‘II’ carved from black granite. The service included a flypast from the Battle of Britain Memorial Flight with Air Chief Marshall Lord Jock Stirrup in attendance, himself a former II (AC) commander in the 1980s. 

Following their return to Scotland, the squadron were awarded the Freedom of Angus in 2019, celebrating their historical links to the county as the first flying unit to be based at Montrose Air Station under the RFC banner.