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When the Royal Air Force was created in 1918, it was decided to give the new service the responsibility of defending its own units. The sharing of responsibilities between the RAF and the Army, however, remained unclear. The formation of RAF Armoured Car Companies in the 1920s which, together with air power, were used to patrol large tracts of desert in the Middle East, provided the RAF with the knowledge and experience it needed to launch ground operations. The Armoured Car Companies are regarded as the historical ancestors of the RAF Regiment.
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Before World
War 2, little attention was paid in Great Britain to the problems of airfield
protection. Although plans had been drawn as early as 1937 for the
RAF to organise its own defences against low-level air and local ground
attack, this service lacked both the manpower and the equipment to provide
adequate protection, and had to rely heavily on the Army to provide these
requirements. After the evacuation of Dunkirk and the German invasions
of Norway, Greece and Crete, the then Prime Minister, Winston Churchill,
decided that the RAF had to raise its own units to defend its facilities
as Army units could no longer be spared for that purpose. Accordingly,
in February 1942, the RAF Regiment was raised as a Corps within the Royal
Air Force by Royal Warrant. During its years of service, the Regiment
served with distinction, losing only on airfield, that of the island of
Cos, which fell into enemy hands on October 1943.
When raised, the Regiment had a largely defensive role, but as the war progressed, its functions evolved to more offensive missions. During World War 2, the armoured car and field squadrons took part in numerous campaigns in many parts of the world. In the United Kingdom, light anti-aircraft (LAA) Squadrons operated against conventional air raids and were later deployed against flying bombs crossing the South East coast. Towards the end of the European campaign the Regiment received orders to occupy all airfields in North West Germany. The squadrons moved ahead of the spearheads of the Second Army to carry out this task, thus becoming the first Allied unit to enter Denmark. The first parachute squadron was formed during operations against the Japanese in South East Asia. As a tribute to the Regiment's achievements in the Far East, the Supreme Allied Commander, Lord Mountbatten, sent for an airman of the Regiment to witness the signing of the Japanese surrender in Singapore. The RAF Regiment also assumed responsibility for the command of three Associated Overseas Forces: The RAF Regiment (Malaya), the Iraq Levies and the Aden Protectorate Levies, until these countries' special relationships with Great Britain came to an end in the 1950s and 1960s. Since the war, the Regiment has taken part in many campaigns and emergency operations, including Palestine, Suez, Kenya, Malaya, Cyprus, Borneo, Aden, Oman, Northern Ireland, the Falkland Islands and the Gulf War. The Regiment continues to serve in all those areas of the world wherever there are RAF aircraft and installations need to be protected. In ceremonials too, the Regiment has played its part, giving displays of co-ordinated and commandless drill from New York to Berlin: from Edinburgh to Lisbon. It mans the Queen's Colour Squadron of the Royal Air Force, which represents the RAF at State and other major ceremonial occasions, and which guards the Queen's Colour for the Royal Air Force in the United Kingdom. The RAF Regiment also has its own Queen's Colour which was presented at Buckingham Palace in 1953. Her Majesty presented a new Colour at the Depot when she reviewed the RAF Regiment on its 25th Anniversary in 1967. During World
War 2, the Regiment had a fighting force of over 85,000 men serving in
some 170 LAA and 70 Field Squadrons. Although this large force was
much reduced in 1957
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