50 Years in the Rearview: Harrier deployment
Still impressive and hard to believe it is a half-century ago.
A No. 1 (F) Squadron, RAF, Hawker Siddeley Harrier GR.1A, deployed to an ersatz field position at Ladyville in the Crown Colony of Belize, formerly British Honduras, in November 1975. The deployment was one of many that stretched through 1993 to dissuade neighboring Guatemala from moving in.
This real-world deployment was only six years after No. 1 became the world’s first operator of a V/STOL combat aircraft. (RAF photo).
Formed as No. 1 Balloon Company in 1878 and Royal Arsenal, Woolwich, No. 1 Squadron became a heavier-than-air outfit in May 1912 with the establishment of the Royal Flying Corps, the only veteran unit in the RFC.
Minting at least 31 flying aces in the Great War, flying no less than 10 types in the process, No. 1 started WWII in Hurricane Mk. 1s and finished it in Spitfire Mk.IXs while picking up another dozen aces. Graduating to jets with the Gloster Meteor in 1946 (and training Robin Olds while on an exchange tour), No. 1 became the first V/STOL fighter unit in the world in 1969 when they fielded the Harrier.
While they never saw combat in Belize, having deployed there with their innovative “jump jets” numerous times, 10 Harrier GR.3s of the squadron did make it to the Falklands, and flew 126 sorties, including the first RAF LGB combat mission, the unit’s first combat since the Suez Crisis in 1956.
Three camouflaged and aardvark-nosed Hawker Siddeley Harrier GR3s of No. 1 Squadron RAF are positioned in the foreground alongside seven gray-blue Royal Navy Fleet Air Arm British Aerospace Sea Harrier FRS.1s and a Sea King HAS.5 of 820 Naval Air Squadron on the flight deck of the light carrier HMS Hermes (R 12). This scene took place on the day No. 1 Squadron joined the ship in the South Atlantic on 19 May 1982. The first Harrier GR3 is armed with a 1,000lb laser-guided bomb (GBU-16 Paveway II) on its outer pylons. At the center of the deck is Sea Harrier FRS.1 (XZ499) of 800 Naval Air Squadron, the aircraft in which LCDR Smith downed an Argentine Skyhawk. RAF MOD 45163716
Switching post-Falklands to Harrier IIs (GR5, GR7, and GR9s), they only hung them up in 2011 when the type was retired in RAF service, logging 42 years as a Harrier unit, a record since surpassed by a few USMC squadrons.
Since then, they have flown Typhoon FGR4s, first out of RAF Leuchars and later RAF Lossiemouth.
Appropriately, the squadron’s motto is In omnibus princeps (Latin for ‘First in all things’).
