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No. 1 Squadron (''The Tigers'') is the oldest squadron of the Indian Air Force. It operates as an multirole (air superiority, precision strike, and electronic warfare) unit. Based at Gwalior AFB, No. 1 Squadron falls under the Central Air Command, and along with No. 7 Squadron (''Battle Axes''), No. 9 Squadron (''Wolf Pack''), and "TACDE", forms a part of 40 Wing of the Indian Air Force. ==Formation of No.1 Squadron== No. 1 Squadron was raised on 1 April 1933 at Drigh Road, Karachi and equipped with four Westland Wapiti aircraft. The Indian element consisted of six officers and nine technicians, then known as Hawai Sepoys. The squadron was formed on the day the Indian Air Force received its first batch of trained pilots from RAF Cranwell. The first batch of Indians at Cranwell were H. C. Sircar, Subroto Mukherjee (later Air Marshal and the first Indian Chief of the Air Staff), A. B. Awan, Bhupendra Singh, Amarjit Singh and J. N. Tandon. They had started training in 1930 and were commissioned in late 1932. Pilot Officer Tandon was too short to qualify for flying training and joined as the Equipment Officer. Flight Lieutenant C. A. Bouchier, DFC, from the RAF was the first Commanding Officer of the squadron. The first batch were later joined by A. M. Engineer, DFC, (later Air Marshal and the Chief of the Air Staff), K. K. Majumdar, DFC & Bar, Narendra, R. H. D. Singh, Prithipal Singh, "Baba" Mehar Singh, S. N. Goyal and Arjan Singh (later Marshal of the Air Force). The years 1933 to 1937 were basically the formative years for the squadron when it trained in its primary role of Army Co-operation from Drigh Road, Peshawar, Chaklala and Sialkot. In September 1937 the squadron was inducted into operations against hostile tribesmen in North West Frontier province. Flying Officer A. M. Engineer was "Mentioned-in-Despatches" for gallantry during this operation. Soon after Flying Officer Subroto Mukherjee was appointed flight commander of "A" Flight. By the time "B" Flight was formed and the three flights came together for the first time in Ambala, all three flight commanders were Indians. These were Flying Officers Subroto Mukherjee, A. M. Engineer and K. K. Majumdar. On 16 March 1939 Flight Lieutenant Subroto Mukherjee took over the command of the squadron from Squadron Leader C. H. Smith, thus becoming the first Indian to command a flight, a squadron, later a station and finally, of course, the Indian Air Force itself. On various occasions, the Indian pilots were required to carry out operations against the tribesman in the NWFP. Several times the pilots had to face the brunt of hostile fire. In 1937, Flying Officer Mehar Singh was attacking a tribal post at Shaider, when his fuel tank was hit by rifle fire. He had to crash land the Wapiti in rocky terrain and had to evade the hostile tribesman searching for them to make it back to the Army lines. On another occasion, Flying Officer Arjan Singh had to force land his Audax in tribal territory. Even he was able to evade the tribesman and make it back to safety. Squadron Leader Mukherjee on one sortie on learning that a besieged Army post was running out of ammunition, instructed his gunner to stuff their socks with the ammunition from the Lewis guns. He then flew low over, dropping the ammunition in the post and thus giving them just enough ammunition to hold out long enough to be relieved. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「No. 1 Squadron IAF」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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