No . 52 Squadron RAF No . 52 Squadron was a Royal Air Force squadron that saw service in both World War I and World War II . History . First World War . No . 52 Squadron of the Royal Flying Corps was formed as a Corps Reconnaissance squadron at Hounslow Heath Aerodrome on 15 May 1916 . It moved to France in November that year , being the first squadron equipped with the Royal Aircraft Factory R . E . 8 . At first the squadron had little success with its R . E . 8s , suffering many spinning accidents , and these losses affected morale so much that in January 1917 the squadron swapped its R . E . 8s for the Royal Aircraft Factory B . E . 2 s of 34 Squadron . It re - equipped again with R . E . 8s in May , flying in support of the allied offensives at Ypres that summer . In March 1918 it suffered heavy losses flying ground attack sorties against the German Spring Offensive in March 1918 . The squadron became part of the Royal Air Force when the Royal Flying Corps merged with the Royal Naval Air Service on 1 April 1918 , continuing in the Corps Reconnaissance role , for the rest of the war . It returned to the United Kingdom in February 1919 , disbanding at Lopcombe Corner on 23 October 1919 . Reformation . No 52 Squadron reformed at RAF Abingdon on 18 January 1937 from a nucleus provided by 15 Squadron . It was initially equipped with Hawker Hind biplane light bombers , these being replaced by Fairey Battle monoplanes from November 1937 . In February 1939 , the squadron became was assigned the task of training crews for the other squadrons in its group , with its Battles being supplemented by Avro Anson to aid the training task . Following the outbreak of the Second World War it continued in the training role , supporting the Battle equipped Advanced Air Striking Force before being absorbed into No 12 Operational Training Unit on 8 April 1940 . The squadron reformed on 1 July 1941 at RAF Habbaniya in Iraq as a maintenance unit . Although it had no aircrew , it did have 21 Hawker Audax es on charge , which were occasionally flown by members of other units based at Habbaniya on reconnaissance missions . In December that year the Audaxes were disposed of , while the Squadron moved to Mosul in August 1942 . No . 52 became a flying squadron again in October 1942 , when it received Bristol Blenheim s , which were used for survey work over Iraq . Its Blenheims were supplemented with Martin Baltimore s in January 1943 . It moved to Egypt in February 1943 , when it discarded its Blenheims to become a solely Batimore equipped Squadron . 24 Squadron moved to Tunisia in June 1943 , where it became operational , flying maritime reconnaissance and Air - Sea - Rescue searches . The squadron moved to Italy in November that year , with detachments at Malta , and then moved again to Gibraltar in February 1944 , disbanding on 31 March 1944 . Transport squadron . On 1 July 1944 , 353 Squadron , a transport squadron equipped with a mix of Lockheed Hudson s and Douglas Dakota s based at Dum Dum near Calcutta , India , was split into two , with the Dakota equipped ' C ' and ' D ' Flights becoming 52 Squadron . A major role of the new squadron was flying air mail over the Himalaya Mountains to China , the so called " Hump route " . It was also used to operate a mail and general transport service throughout India and Ceylon . The Squadron received a number of Liberator s in December 1944 for Hump operations , with a few Beechcraft Expeditor light transports and de Havilland Tiger Moth s modified as air ambulance s in 1945 . It continued its transport routes to China and throughout India following the end of the War , extending them to Malaya . By the time flights over the Hump route to China finished in December 1945 , the Squadron had flown 830 crossings of the Himalayas , carrying 3 , 277 passengers , 1 , 916 , 443 lb ( 871 , 100 kg ) of cargo and 454 , 834 lb ( 20 , 380 kg ) of mail for the loss of one aircraft . The squadron moved to Mingladon in Burma in October 1946 , but transferred to Singapore in July 1947 following a coup . From here it was soon involved in ' Operation Firedog ' . Dakotas were replaced by Valettas in 1951 and based at RAAF Butterworth these continued to be used on a regular passenger run between Singapore and Butterworth until unreliability forced cessation of passenger carrying . The squadron continued to operate , notably from Kuching dropping supplies to the jungle troops , mainly Gurkhas , fighting the Indonesian troops in the confrontation war until disbanded on 25 April 1966 . The squadron reformed , for the final time so far , on 1 December 1966 at Seletar . It was still employed on general transport duties but was now equipped with Andover aircraft , which it used until disbanding on 31 December 1969 . Tasks were found for the squadron with regular flights to RAAF Butterworth , a twice weekly flight to RAF Kuching , Seria Anduki and RAF Labuan , with the aircraft returning after a night stop . The latter flight was also utilised to ferry Gurkha troops to Singapore for onward flights to Nepal . Training and liaison flight were undertaken around the region including Hong Kong , Saigon and Bangkok . In 1968 , the squadron was relocated to RAF Changi and was disbanded in January 1970 .