No. 99 Squadron — Madras Presidency

No. 99 (Madras Presidency) Squadron holds the distinction of being the first Royal Air Force unit to receive the Vickers Wellington, taking on the type in 1938 and carrying it into action from the opening weeks of the Second World War. Assigned to No. 3 Group, Bomber Command, the squadron flew from RAF Mildenhall and later RAF Newmarket and Waterbeach, conducting leaflet drops over Germany in the earliest days of the conflict before joining the night-bombing campaign against industrial and naval targets across occupied Europe. The squadron suffered grievous losses, most notably in December 1939 when a formation attacking German warships was driven back by low cloud and enemy fighters, losing six of twelve Wellingtons without releasing a single bomb. In February 1942 the squadron transferred to India, eventually resuming Wellington operations against Japanese-held Burma from November 1942 and extending the campaign to targets in Thailand and Malaya after re-equipping with Consolidated Liberators from September 1944. During the final months of the war the squadron staged forward to Cocos Island in the Indian Ocean in preparation for the planned invasion of Malaya, a landing that never came after Japan’s surrender. The squadron disbanded on Cocos Island on 15 November 1945, having served continuously as a front-line bomber unit for the entirety of the war across two theatres.