No. 61 Squadron RAF

It was first formed as a fighter squadron of the British Royal Flying Corps during the First World War.

It was reformed in 1937 as a bomber squadron of the Royal Air Force and served in the Second World War and afterwards into the jet age, until disbanded in 1958.

The squadron first went into action on 12 August, when a formation of ten Gotha G.IV bombers approached the Thames Estuary.

The squadron's first operational mission was on 25 December 1939, comprising an armed reconnaissance over the North Sea by 11 Hampden bombers.

Records show that in the case of the first three aircraft, the long road to their centuries included participation in the raid on 3/4 November 1943, when Flight Lieutenant William Reid of No.

It was detached from its base in Rutland to St Eval in Cornwall, and on the very first occasion that it operated from there, 17 July, a crew captained by Flight Lieutenant PR Casement (Lancaster I R5724) became the first Bomber Command crew to bring back irrefutable evidence that they had destroyed a U-boat at sea, in the form of a photograph showing the crew of U-751 in the water swimming away from their sinking vessel.

The last mission before VE Day was on 6 May 1945, when the squadron's Lancasters ferried 336 ex-POWs home to the UK from Europe.