No. 97 Squadron RAF
squadron of the Royal Air Force
No. 97 (Straits Settlements) Squadron, was a Royal Air Force squadron formed on 1 December 1917 at Waddington, Lincolnshire, serving in France as a heavy bomber unit until the end of the First World War.
The squadron reformed and served again flying heavy bombers during the Second World War, becoming a Pathfinder Force unit in 1943. In peacetime, the squadron continued in a variety of roles until final disbandment in 1967.
World War I
The squadron formed on 1 December 1917 at RAF Waddington, and was initially a training unit. The squadron re-equipped with the Handley Page O/400 heavy bomber before moving to France in August 1917. In total, it flew 91 bombing sorties and dropped 64 tons of bombs before the end of the First World War.
Between the Wars
From 17 November 1918, 97 Squadron was based at RAF Saint Inglevert, departing on 4 March 1919, and re-equipping with the Airco DH.10 Amiens. The squadron was later posted to India, where it remained until disbanding on 1 April 1920, after being re-numbered No. 60 squadron.
The public source identifies “No. 97 Squadron RAF” as squadron of the Royal Air Force. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Squadron, squadron and Royal.
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The citation trail is more important than the brevity of the summary: it shows where individual claims can be examined in context. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 20, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q7043883. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1917, 1943, 1967 and 1918.
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This entry incorporates text from “No. 97 Squadron RAF” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.