No. 271 Squadron RAF

No. 271 Squadron RAF
Active	27 September 1918 – 9 December 1918 1 May 1940 – 1 December 1946
Country	United Kingdom
Branch	Royal Air Force
Motto(s)	Death and Life
Insignia
Squadron codes	BJ (May 1940 – January 1944) YS and L7 (January 1944 – December 1946)

No. 271 Squadron of the Royal Air Force was operational for two periods; a few brief months between 27 September 1918 and 9 December 1918 operating flying boats to protect shipping from German U-boats, and between 28 March 1940 and 1 December 1946 as a transport squadron.

271 Squadron was formed from Flights 357, 358, and 367 based at the former Royal Naval Air Service station of Otranto in southern Italy. All had been equipped with flying boats or seaplanes, mostly the Felixstowe F.3 and possibly some Short 184s. The mission was to protect shipping from German U-boats; after the Armistice, the unit was quickly disbanded.

In May 1940, the squadron was created from the former 1680 Flight at Doncaster, in a transport role. Equipment mostly consisted of the Handley Page Harrow, supplemented with the Bristol Bombay and civil airliners impressed into military service, including the Handley Page H.P.42s from Imperial Airways.

Among the early tasks of the squadron was the support of RAF units in France, and the evacuation of them once the fall of France became inevitable. Following that, they worked mostly within the UK, moving equipment and supplies, especially when RAF fighter squadrons moved airfields. For a while the Squadron operated a detached flight at RAF Wick running a regular service to Reykjavík in Iceland using de Havilland DH.91 Albatross aircraft, but when both were lost this was abandoned, the detached flight instead acquiring de Havilland Dominies, which were used to supply remote Scottish communities.

...
Wikipedia