page_title: No. 88 Squadron RAF
section_title: Post-War
hierarchical_section_title: No. 88 Squadron RAF / Post-War
context_page_description: Number 88 Squadron was an aircraft squadron of the Royal Air Force. It was formed at Gosport, Hampshire in July 1917 as a Royal Flying Corps squadron.
context_section_description: On 1 September 1946, No. 1430 Flight at RAF Kai Tak, Hong Kong, equipped with Short Sunderland flying boats, was redesignated No. 88 Squadron. It was initially employed on transport duties, ferrying passengers, mail and freight from Hong Kong to Iwakuni in Japan in support of the British Commonwealth Occupation Force. The squadron later became a General Reconnaissance unit, adding maritime patrol and anti-piracy operations to its transport duties. By April 1949, the Chinese Civil War was approaching its conclusion, with Chinese Communist forces advancing towards Shanghai. When the Royal Navy ship HMS Amethyst, on her way up the Yangtze river to Nanjing to relieve HMS Consort as guard ship, came under fire from People's Liberation Army artillery and ran aground on 20 April in what became known as the Yangtze Incident, one of the squadron's Sunderlands was deployed in support of British efforts to relieve Amethyst, alighting on the Yangtze near Amethyst on 21 April. Although the Sunderland came under fire after alighting, a doctor and medical supplies were transferred to the ship by boat. A second attempt on 22 April was less successful, the Sunderland being forced to take off without making any transfers to or from Amethyst. The squadron's Sunderlands helped to evacuate British subjects from Shanghai on 17 May. The outbreak of the Korean War in 1950, saw the squadron fly patrols along the Korean coast, with detachments operating from Iwakuni. In June 1951 the squadron moved to RAF Seletar in Singapore, with its patrol duties off Korea being passed on to other Sunderland squadrons. It was disbanded on 1 October 1954.
  On 15 January 1956, No. 88 Squadron reformed at RAF Wildenrath as an interdiction squadron equipped with English Electric Canberra B(I)8s, with a main role of low-level night ground attack. From January 1958, it added nuclear strike, using US-owned Mark 7 nuclear bombs supplied under Project E to its conventional attack duties. In July 1958, the squadron was deployed to RAF Akrotiri in Cyprus due to fears that the Lebanon crisis might escalate, and in June 1961, it was briefly deployed to Sharjah in response to Iraqi threats against Kuwait. On 17 December 1962, the squadron was renumbered No. 14 Squadron.
caption: A Short Sunderland, similar to what No. 88 Squadron operated from 1946 to 1954.
exif: {"Image Orientation": "Horizontal (normal)", "Image XResolution": "72", "Image YResolution": "72", "Image ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Image Software": "Adobe Photoshop CS3 Windows", "Image DateTime": "2007:09:24 13:13:31", "Image ExifOffset": "164", "Thumbnail Compression": "JPEG (old-style)", "Thumbnail XResolution": "72", "Thumbnail YResolution": "72", "Thumbnail ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormat": "302", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormatLength": "6496", "EXIF ColorSpace": "Uncalibrated", "EXIF ExifImageWidth": "624", "EXIF ExifImageLength": "443"}