No. 24 Squadron — Commonwealth

No. 24 Squadron was formed in September 1915 as a Royal Flying Corps fighter unit, and on reforming at RAF Kenley on 1 April 1920 it became a communications and transport squadron — a role it would fulfil continuously through the Second World War. Based at RAF Hendon from 1933 to 1946, the squadron flew a varied fleet of impressed civil airliners alongside military types, maintaining courier and liaison routes across Britain and, from late 1939, into France. After the fall of France it concentrated on domestic communications work until April 1942, when it transferred from Fighter Command to No. 44 Group and began operating long-range routes to Gibraltar and Malta. In March 1943 the squadron took on the operation of the Prime Minister’s personal Avro York, named Ascalon, and thereafter transported Winston Churchill and other senior Allied figures to wartime conferences including those at Tehran and Cairo. As the squadron’s commitments diversified, elements were hived off to form No. 510 Squadron in October 1942 and No. 512 Squadron in June 1943, leaving No. 24 to concentrate on long-distance VIP routes using the York and Douglas Dakota. The honorific title “Commonwealth” was conferred in April 1947 in recognition of the squadron’s role flying VIP personnel across the Commonwealth.