No. 106 Squadron RAF was a Royal Flying Corps and Royal Air Force squadron active from 1917 until 1919, throughout World War II and during the Cold War from 1959 until 1963. History Establishment and early service Formed as No. 106 Squadron RFC, at Andover, Hampshire, on 30 September 1917. It was initially intended to be a corps reconnaissance squadron but after training in May 1918 it was not sent to the Western Front but to Ireland to help with the developing troubles there. It served in army co-operation and policing roles for eighteen months before being disbanded at Fermoy, on 8 October 1919. The squadron next appeared in June 1938, when it was re-formed as No. 106 (Bomber) Squadron. Reformation and World War II The squadron reformed on 1 June 1938 at RAF Abingdon from a nucleus provided by a flight from No. 15 Squadron. Initially equipped with Hawker Hinds, it began to receive Fairey Battles on 8 July before moving to No. 5 Group at RAF Thornaby on 1 September and, temporarily, moving to RAF Grantham on 26 September before returning to Thornaby on 14 October 1938. From May 1939 the squadron began re-equipping with Handley Page Hampdens together with Avro Ansons to assist in the conversion process. The squadron left RAF Thornaby on 19 August 1939 for armament training at RAF Evanton and, on 1 September, moved to RAF Cottesmore. At the outbreak of the Second World War the squadron was flying Hampdens with No. 5 Group in a training role which continued up until 1 March 1941 when it reverted to front-line status and began regular night bombing operations against Fortress Europe, flying its first bombing raid on Cologne, although it had taken part in some minelaying prior to that. After a short spell in early 1942 with Avro Manchesters, No. 106 Squadron started replacing them with Avro Lancasters in May, but it did not convert completely to Lancasters before some of the squadron's Manchesters had participated in the thousand-bomber raids on Cologne, Essen and Bremen during the summer of 1942. In October it contributed ten Lancasters to No. 5 Group's low-level epic dusk raid on the Schneider Works at Le Creusot and two more, one of them piloted by commanding officer Guy Gibson, to a subsidiary raid on Montchanin. In June 1943 it took part in the first "shuttle bombing" raids on Friedrichshafen and La