28 Squadron

For overseas service, few squadrons can match No. 28s record of continual operations abroad, an 81-year wait for a home posting ending in July 2001 when the unit reformed at RAF Benson in Oxfordshire. 

It was 1920 when the squadron departed for India, moving across the globe in the years following, finally ending its extended world tour in Hong Kong prior to the handover back to China in 1997, 82 years after its formation at Gosport in Hampshire.                                                   

Formed on November 7, 1915, as a training unit, the squadron moved to Yatesbury in Wiltshire in July 1917, the emblem of Pegasus on the squadron badge relating to the chalk white horse on the Downs near its home station. But it would only be a short stay in Britain and the unit spent the last year of WWI flying firstly in France and Belgium, and then being transferred to Milan as part of reinforcements for the Italian Front, remaining in that role until the end of hostilities, before returning to Yatesbury in February 1919.  

Disbanded on January 20, 1920, No. 28 was soon back on duty, reappearing around ten weeks’ later to increase air strength along the North West Frontier in what was then India, reforming at RAF Ambala by a renumbering of 114 Squadron, No. 28 now an army co-operation (AC) unit. It was exactly two years after the RAF was established that No. 28 made the site 130 miles north of New Delhi their new home, equipped with Bristol F2b Fighters, carrying out operations in support of troops across the region.  

A major problem for RAF personnel in India at this time was the inability to service aircraft, leading to many being unusable, and by August 1922 a report indicated that of the 70 RAF aircraft in India, only seven were operational; the report concluding “… the RAF in India is to all intents and purposes non-existent as a fighting force at this date.”  

Despite the problems encountered, the RAF were committed to the India campaign, No. 28 moving around the region with stints at Peshawar, Tank and Quetta, returning to Ambala in January 1927 and remaining there for the next ten years; aircraft were upgraded to Westland Wapitis, then Hawker Audaxes, with operations including relief flights following an earthquake at Quetta (now in Pakistan), and quelling an uprising in Waziristan (also now part of Pakistan).  

At the outbreak of WWII, the squadron was located at Kohat, remaining there until a detachment was sent to Port Blair on the Andaman Islands, around 600 miles west of Bangkok, in response to Japan’s invasion on Burma late in 1941. No. 28’s Lysanders were fitted with racks to transport 250lb bombs, carrying out attacks on airfields, railways, and troops, but with British forces suffering major losses, the unit returned to India, leaving three of their Lysanders in Burma; a further two Lysanders were destroyed on the ground at Port Blair before departure, with two transported back to India. 

Continuing operations across the North West Frontier, it was December 1942 that No. 28 were equipped with Hawker Hurricanes, and by 1943 they were again operating over Burma, remaining in that role until the end of hostilities.  

Post war, No. 28 continued as a fighter-reconnaissance unit as part of the Far East Air Force, swapping their Hurricanes for Spitfires in October 1945, before a move to Penang in Malaysia, and then further transfers over the following 18 months to Kuala Lumpur and then Tengah in Singapore.  

It was 1949 when the unit transferred to Kai Tak, strengthening the area’s defences due to the ongoing Chinese Civil War, Hong Kong becoming the squadron’s home for the next 48 years; No. 28 was by then essentially a fighter unit, its reconnaissance role relinquished, and while there it became the last front-line RAF squadron operating Spitfires, finally entering the jet age in February 1951 with de Havilland Vampires. 

No. 28 was located at both Kai Tak and Sek Kong, leaving the latter in June 1957 after a Defence Review handed it over to the Army, the unit progressing through a range of aircraft types with Vampires replaced by Venoms, and then Hawker Hunters, the squadron disbanding in January 1967 ahead of a more dramatic switch of aircraft type. 

It was March 1, 1968, that No. 28 was reformed from a detachment of No. 103 Squadron, becoming a helicopter unit for the first time, still at Kai Tak; their first new aircraft the Westland Whirlwind, upgrading to the Westland Wessex four years’ later, before the unit switched across the island back to Sek Kong. It was November 1996 when the squadron returned to Kai Tak ahead of the British withdrawal from Hong Kong six months’ later, the unit returning to the UK with their Wessexes sold to Uruguay.  

A four-year hiatus followed until No. 28 was reformed at RAF Benson in Oxfordshire in July 2001, 81-years since the squadron was last operational in Britain. Now operating Westland Merlin helicopters, the unit’s first operational role was in support of SFOR in April 2003, a NATO-led stabilisation peacekeeping force deployed to Bosnia and Herzegovina after the Bosnian War.  

Two years after their work in Bosnian they were again on their travels, this time deployed to Basrah as part of Operation Telic, remaining in Iraq until 2009 when they returned to the UK for short while before a four-year spell in Afghanistan as part of Operation Herrick.  

As part of a government Strategic Defence Review, the RAF’s Oxfordshire Merlin helicopter force was transferred to the Royal Navy, No. 28 reforming in July 2015 back at RAF Benson, this time as the joint Chinook and Puma Operational Conversion Unit (OCU). No. 28’s centenary celebrations were delayed due to the upheaval of their new role, the event marked in April 2016 to coincide with the refurbishment of the new hangar at their Oxfordshire base. 

In October 2021, the unit was re-authorised to use its historical ‘Army Co-operation’ (AC) designation, 101 years after it was first honoured with the title at RAF Ambala, when it was flying Bristol F2b biplanes in support of troops on the North West Frontier.