No . 66 Squadron RAF No . 66 Squadron was a Royal Flying Corps and eventually Royal Air Force aircraft squadron . History . In World War I . It was first formed at Filton on 30 June 1916 as a training squadron equipped with Royal Aircraft Factory BE2 , BE12 s and the Avro 504 . The squadron received its first Sopwith Pup on 3 February 1917 , and deployed to Vert Galand in the Somme , France on 12 March 1917 . The Pup ’ s were exchanged for Sopwith Camel s during October 1917 and the squadron moved to join No . 14 Wing in Italy . During twelve months of fighting in Italy the squadron destroyed 172 enemy aircraft . On the 13 March 1918 Lieutenant Alan Jerrard engaged nineteen enemy aircraft on his own , he managed to destroy three before he was forced to land and taken prisoner , he was awarded the squadron ' s only Victoria Cross for his efforts . At the end of the war the squadron stayed on in Italy for a few months , returning to the United Kingdom in March 1919 and was disbanded on 25 October 1919 . Flying aces . The 21 aces who had served with the squadron during the Great War were : William George Barker VC , Alan Jerrard VC , Peter Carpenter , Harry King Goode , Francis S . Symondson , Gerald Alfred Birks , Charles M . Maud , Gordon Apps , Hilliard Brooke Bell , Christopher McEvoy , Harold Ross Eycott - Martin , William Myron MacDonald , Augustus Paget , John Oliver Andrews , Harold Koch Boysen , William Carrall Hilborn , Thomas Hunter , James Lennox , Walbanke Ashby Pritt , Patrick Gordon Taylor and , John ( Jack ) Wallis Baker . Second World War . It was reformed on 20 July 1936 from ' C ' Flight , No . 19 Squadron RAF at RAF Duxford , initially being equipped with Gloster Gauntlet s , before a slow conversion to Supermarine Spitfire s from August 1938 . The squadron was part of No . 12 Group RAF in Fighter Command and was on readiness from the start of the war in September 1939 . The first contact with the enemy was an attack on a Heinkel He 111 of the Norfolk coast near Cromer , the German aircraft subsequently crashed in Denmark . The squadron moved to RAF Horsham St . Faith after the Germany invasion of Belgium and the Netherlands , the squadron destroyed its first enemy aircraft on 12 May 1940 over the Hague . At the end of August the squadron moved to the south of England as part of the Battle of Britain , it operated from RAF Kenley , RAF Gravesend , RAF West Malling and by November to RAF Biggin Hill . By the time the Germans had stopped daylight bombing the squadron had destroyed 20 aircraft with another 17 probables and also damaged another fifteen . In April 1941 the squadron moved to Perranport in Cornwall to operate fighter sweep missions over the Channel , it moved to Portreath in December 1941 and re - equipped with the Spitfire V . In April 1942 the squadron moved to RAF Ibsley and was involved in the support for the combined operations at Dieppe . It moved to the Orkney island to provide fighter cover for the British fleet based at Scapa Flow before returning to Cornwall in October 1943 . In November 1943 the squadron moved to RAF Hornchurch and converted to the Spitfire IX . The squadron became part of the Second Tactical Air Force and provided air cover for the invasion forces in Normandy , being based in France from 22 June . After a break in South Wales the squadron continued to support the advancing allied forces being based at Abbeville in September 1944 and then on to Grimbergen in Belgium . In November the squadron converted to the Spitfire XVI before moving the Twente in the Netherland where it disbanded on 30 April 1945 . Post - war . It was reformed at Duxford on 1 September 1946 , by renumbering No . 165 Squadron RAF , initially with Spitfires . The following northern spring , the squadron converted to Meteors , which it flew for six years before reequipping with Sabres . At RAF Linton - on - Ouse in March 1956 it acquired Hawker Hunters , which it flew before being disbanded again on 30 September 1960 at RAF Acklington . On helicopters . It reformed at RAF Odiham on 15 September 1961 , from the Belvedere Trials Unit equipped with Bristol Belvedere helicopters . In June 1962 it left the UK for Seletar in Singapore , where it provided heavy lift helicopter support for forces operating in Malaya . The squadron finally disbanded on 17 March 1969 .