35 Squadron operated during World War II, transporting cargo and passengers around Australia, New Guinea and the Netherlands East Indies, equipped with a variety of aircraft including the Douglas Dakota.

35 Squadron was formed at RAAF Station Pearce, Western Australia, on 11 March 1942, under the command of Flight Lieutenant Percival Burdeu, as a transport unit.

[1] During the later years of the war the squadron provided air transport to the Australian military throughout the South West Pacific area, operating out of Guildford, Western Australia, Brisbane, Queensland, and Cape York.

In the final years of the war, detachments operated out of Darwin, Northern Territory, Townsville, Queensland, and later Morotai Island.

[2] Despite not being employed in an offensive role, the squadron's aircraft were regularly called upon to fly into dangerous areas of the conflict zone, often at low level, and on several occasions the Caribous were fired upon and aircrew wounded.

[2] During the five years that it was deployed, the squadron lost two aircraft destroyed in accidents, the result of poor weather and the difficult nature of some of the landing grounds that the Caribous were required to use when supporting isolated garrisons.

Another aircraft was destroyed from Viet Cong mortar fire, struck while conducting a resupply mission at Thất Sơn in 1970.

[3] These aircraft were employed in a multitude of roles including support to the local community in the form of flood relief, medevac and search and rescue operations.

Operating eight Caribous, the squadron continued to provide tactical transport to Army units based in Northern Australia until 2000, when it was reduced to "paper only" status and its aircraft transferred to No.

A skeleton organisation, the squadron was expected to expand to approximately 250 personnel by 2015, when it was scheduled to begin operating the RAAF's ten Alenia C-27J Spartan transport aircraft.

[9] The squadron planned to move to RAAF Base Amberley prior to achieving full operational capability in early 2019.

[13] In July 2021 the role of the squadron was adjusted, with it to focus on humanitarian and disaster relief tasks within Australia and nearby countries.

The article stated that the C-27s' performance had not yet met the final operating capability criteria, with the type requiring remediation work on its missile approach and warning system, and the aircraft had a persistently low availability rate due to sustainment and supply chain problems.