Country United Kingdom | Branch Royal Air Force | |
Active 1943–1946
1952–1958
2006–present Motto(s) A Deux Plus Forts(Latin: Two heads are better than one) Air Officer Commanding
UK Air Component Commander Air Commodore M Sampson | ||
No. 83 Expeditionary Air Group is a group within the Royal Air Force currently based in the Middle East.
Contents
It used to be No. 83 Group which was controlled by the 2nd Tactical Air Force (2TAF) during the Second World War and the post-war era.
No. 83 (Composite) Group
No. 83 (Composite) Group was formed on 1 April 1943 within the Second Tactical Air Force. By the eve of the D-Day landings, 83 Group had grown to a strength of 29 fighter, ground-attack and reconnaissance squadrons and four artillery observation squadrons, grouped into ten wings.
At the time of Operation Market Garden it consisted of the RCAF's 39 Reconnaissance Wing, 121, 122, 123 and 143 Wings flying Hawker Typhoon fighter-bombers, 125 Wing with Supermarine Spitfire fighters, and the RCAF 126 and 127 Wings also flying Spitfires. No 401 (Ram) Squadron with Spitfires was one of its squadrons from 1943. The Group HQ was at RAF Eindhoven from 1 October 1944 to 10 April 1945. It was absorbed into No. 84 Group RAF on 21 April 1946.
No. 83 Group
No 83 Group was re-formed on 9 July 1952 within the Second Tactical Air Force in Germany to control its southern area. By 1956, the group controlled five wings with a total of fourteen squadrons equipped Hawker Hunter day fighters, de Havilland Venom fighter-bombers, Supermarine Swift fighter-reconnaissance aircraft, Gloster Meteor night-fighters and English Electric Canberra interdiction and reconnaissance aircraft. It was disbanded again on 16 June 1958.
Current operations
No. 83 Group was re-formed on 1 April 2006 from the UK Air Component Headquarters in the Middle East. It comprised No. 901 Expeditionary Air Wing in the Middle East and Bahrain and No. 902 Expeditionary Air Wing at Seeb. Since that time it has controlled a varying number of Expeditionary Air Wings.
The Air Officer Commanding No. 83 Group is the Air Component Commander in the Middle East. He is responsible to the Permanent Joint Headquarters for the command and control of all RAF units engaged in Operations Kipion and Shader. The group has a small number of headquarters staff.
It is currently in charge of:
901 Expeditionary Air Wing
902 Expeditionary Air Wing
903 Expeditionary Air Wing
906 Expeditionary Air Wing