No . 81 Squadron RAF No 81 Squadron was a squadron of the Royal Air Force . It flew Fighter aircraft during the Second World War , and reconnaissance aircraft in the Far East after the war , but was disbanded in 1970 . History . First World War . No . 81 Squadron Royal Flying Corps was formed on 7 January 1917 at Gosport as a training unit , but unlike many other Training squadrons during the First World War , it was not mobilised for active service and was disbanded on 4 July 1918 . Second World War . On 1 December 1939 the Communications Squadron at Mountjoie , France , operating de Havilland Tiger Moth s , was redesignated No . 81 . It was disbanded on 15 June 1940 , when the advancing German forces forced its withdrawal to the United Kingdom . Following the German Invasion of the Soviet Union , it was decided to send a wing of Hawker Hurricane fighters to assist the Soviet war effort , and No . 81 Squadron reformed at RAF Leconfield on 29 July 1941 as part of No . 151 Wing RAF . In September it flew its Hurricanes off the carrier HMS " Argus " , deploying to an airfield near Murmansk . It flew both defensive sorties and escort missions for Soviet bombers , while carrying out its principal role of training Soviet pilots on the Hurricane . After a few weeks of operations the Hurricanes were handed over to the Soviets and the Squadron left to return to the UK at the end of November . When it arrived back at the UK , it was re - equipped with Supermarine Spitfire s at RAF Turnhouse , Edinburgh , being declared operational on 1 February 1942 . It moved to RAF Hornchurch near London in May , flying its first operation , escorting Hurricanes bombing Bruges on 1 June . At the end of October the Squadron moved to Gibraltar and on 8 November , 19 Spitfires moved to the newly captured airfield at Maison Blanche , Algiers . Following the German surrender in North Africa , it moved to Malta in preparation for the Invasion of Sicily . It then moved to Italy in September but was withdrawn to Egypt in November to prepare for deployment to the Far East . It arrived at Alipore , India in December 1943 , equipped with more modern Spitfire VIII , starting operations in January . It flew fighter and ground attack missions in support of the Second Battle of Arakan and the Battle of Imphal as part of the RAF Third Tactical Air Force . It was withdrawn to Ceylon in August and disbanded on 20 June 1945 . On the same day No . 123 Squadron was renumbered as No . 81 but its Thunderbolts did not become operational before the war ended . In October , the Squadron was sent to Java in response to the Indonesian War of Independence , flying tactical reconnaissance duties and covering Allied road convoys , while striking against nationalist held airfields and ammunition dumps . On 30 June 1946 , the Squadron was again disbanded . Postwar reconnaissance operations . On 1 September 1946 , No . 684 Squadron , the Far east photo - reconnaissance squadron flying de Havilland Mosquito PR . 34s and Spitfire PR . 19s , was renumbered as No . 81 . It added fighter - reconnaissance Spitfires in August 1947 , when it became involved in the Malayan Emergency . Conversion to Meteor PR . 10s began in September 1953 , with the Squadron flying the RAF ' s last operational Spitfire mission on 1 April 1954 and the last operational RAF Mosquito mission on 15 December 1955 . It received a few Percival Pembroke s for survey operations in 1956 , and began converting to the English Electric Canberra in 1958 , flying its last Meteor mission on 7 July 1961 , retaining the Canberra until the Squadron was disbanded as part of Britain ' s withdrawal from bases East of Suez on 16 January 1970 . The Squadron was based at Raf Seletar and Raf Tengah in Singapore from 1947 to 1970 with a small detachment at RAF Kai Tak in Hong Kong from 1947 to 1954 . Squadron Insignia . The squadron insignia consists of sword on a red star . According to the memoirs of Alan McGregor Peart DFC , who served with the squadron in World War 2 , the squadron had no formal insignia until 1943 , when the members of the squadron decided to devise one . The red star was used as a symbol of the squadron ' s previous deployment to the Soviet Union , and the borrowed the rampant sword of the First Army in North Africa to represent the squadron ' s deployment in that theater . The squadron ' s motto , Non Solum Nobis , is Latin for " not for ourselves alone " .