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#902A Tornado GR4 2 Sqn Special Tail

Tornado GR4 2 Sqn Special Tail
Purchased products will not feature the Squadron Prints watermark
£10.00 €12.05 $12.52
43.8 cm x 29.2 cm
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Print
Tornado GR4
ZD748 '096'
2 Sqn
RAF Marham
UK - Air Force
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Description

Squadron Prints Lithograph No. 902A - ZD748 '096', Tornado GR4, II(AC) Squadron, RAF Marham.

No II(AC) Squadron was formed at Farnborough on 13 May 1912 with BE prototypes as one of the squadrons of the Royal Flying Corps.  After training on a number of types it moved to France in August 1914 as part of the British Expeditionary Force and later standardised on BE2s.  Flying from many locations in France during WW1, the Squadron provided vital reconnaissance information needed by the ground troops.  On 26 April 1915, 2Lt Rhodes-Moorhouse was wounded and subsequently awarded a VC, the first of the war for the RFC.  In March 1918 the Squadron’s second VC was awarded to a Canadian, 2Lt MacLeod.  It was here that a black triangle, later changed to white, was adopted as a marking to prevent friendly fire incidents.  The Squadron re-equipped with FK 8s in April 1917, returned to the UK in February 1919 and disbanded on 20 January 1920.  It reformed on 1 February 1920 for Army Cooperation duties in Ireland but returned to Digby in 1922 and operated from bases in England until April 1927 when it left for Shanghai in China.  The Squadron returned to Manston in October and later moved to Hawkinge in late 1935.  During this period it operated Bristol F2b Fighters, Atlas, Audax, Hector and eventually Lysander aircraft, which were used to insert troops into enemy territory in WW2.  In August 1941 the Squadron took on the Tomahawk, and in April 1942, the Mustang.  After D-Day II(AC) Squadron moved to France and advanced with the Army into the Netherlands where it received Spitfire XIVs in November 1944.  After the War, the Squadron remained in Europe as a fighter-reconnaissance unit, part of the Second Allied Tactical Air Force.  From December 1950 Meteor FR9s replaced the Spitfires, later supplemented by PR10s in March 1951.  In March 1956, the Squadron received Swift FR5s until Hunter FR10s replaced them in March 1961.  Conversion to Phantom FGR2s took place at Brüggen in December 1970 and the Squadron moved to Laarbruch on 1 April 1971 to be re-equipped with Jaguar GR1s in April 1976.  The Tornado GR1A, the reconnaissance variant of the aircraft, replaced the Jaguar in January 1989. Following Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait in 1990, 6 aircraft of II(AC) Squadron deployed to Dharan, Saudi Arabia, in January 1991 as part of a joint reconnaissance unit with 13 Squadron, where they completed 128 night low-level Scud-hunting missions.  On 1 December 1991 the Squadron relocated to its present home of RAF Marham, continuing to deploy on operations over Iraq, and in 1999 dropped its first wartime bomb since WW2.  In 2001, II(AC) Squadron led into service the Tornado GR4/4A and the Goodrich RAPTOR reconnaissance pod.  The Squadron’s most recent operation, TELIC, began in 2003 with the liberation of Iraq, and currently involves ongoing support missions over the country.  In 2007 the Squadron celebrates its 95th Anniversary, the first fixed-wing squadron in the world to do so, thereby upholding its unofficial motto of ‘Second to None’.

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