No. 84 Squadron

No. 84 Squadron was formed in February 1917 as a Royal Flying Corps fighter unit and served on the Western Front, before disbanding in 1920 and reforming the same year at Baghdad, where it spent the inter-war decades garrisoned in Iraq flying a succession of imperial-policing aircraft. On the outbreak of the Second World War the squadron was equipped with Bristol Blenheims and flew bombing operations from Iraq, then Greece against Italian and German forces from late 1940 until the fall of Greece in April 1941. The unit was subsequently deployed to Sumatra and Java in early 1942 to resist the Japanese advance through the Dutch East Indies, suffering severe losses before most personnel were captured or evacuated. Reformed in India, the squadron re-entered combat with Vultee Vengeance dive-bombers in support of Chindit and other army operations over Burma from early 1944, before transitioning to de Havilland Mosquitos in February 1945 — too late to return to operations before the Japanese surrender. The squadron’s badge, a scorpion approved by King George VI in December 1936, and its motto Scorpiones pungunt (“Scorpions sting”) reflect its long association with the Middle East; it holds the distinction of being the only RAF squadron to have spent its entire service history based overseas.