No. 211 Squadron RAF

No. 211 Squadron RAF
A Bristol Blenheim of 211 Squadron preparing to taxi at Menidi, Greece, 1941
Active	1917 1918–1919 1937–1946
Country	United Kingdom
Branch	Royal Air Force
Role	Light bomber / fighter-bomber squadron
Motto(s)	Toujours à propos ("Always at the right moment")
Aircraft	Sopwith Pup Sopwith Triplane Sopwith Camel Airco DH.4 Airco DH.9 Hawker Audax Hawker Hind Bristol Blenheim Bristol Beaufighter de Havilland Mosquito
Engagements	World War I  • Western Front World War II  • North African Campaign  • Greco-Italian War  • Battle of Greece  • Syria–Lebanon Campaign  • Dutch East Indies campaign  • Burma Campaign
Insignia
Squadron badge	An azure lion disjointed, ducally crowned.
Squadron code	AO (1938) LJ (April–September 1939) UQ (September 1939 onwards)

No. 211 Squadron RAF was a squadron in the Royal Air Force active from 1917 to 1919 and from 1937 to 1946. In World War I it operated as a bomber and later a reconnaissance unit on the Western Front. In World War II it operated as a medium bomber unit in the Middle East and Far East and later as a strike fighter unit in the Far East, equipped with, successively, the Bristol Blenheim, the Bristol Beaufighter and de Havilland Mosquito.

No. 11 (Naval) Squadron was formed in March 1917 as a squadron of the Royal Naval Air Service. It was primarily an operational training squadron, flying single-seat fighter aircraft, mainly Sopwith Pups and Triplanes, and a few Camels. It also flew standing patrols over the British naval ships stationed in the North Sea off the coast of the Netherlands. It was disbanded in August 1917.

On 10 March 1918 it was reformed as an RNAS bomber squadron at Petite-Synthe, Dunkirk, operating the DH.4 and DH.9 day bomber. Its operations were mainly directed against the ports of Bruges, Zeebrugge and Ostende, in an attempt to interdict the German U-boat campaign. On 1 April 1918, with the merging of the RNAS and the Army's Royal Flying Corps, it was renamed No. 211 Squadron RAF. It later flew operations in support of the Belgian Army in Flanders. From October 1918 it operated as a photographic reconnaissance unit.

The squadron was disbanded at RAF Wyton on 24 June 1919. During its period of service it lost 22 aircrew killed in action, 10 taken prisoner and 15 interned in the Netherlands. A further 18 men were wounded, while two men died during the post-war flu pandemic. They had accounted for 35 enemy aircraft, dropped 150 tons of bombs, and flown 205 reconnaissance sorties.