The Queen's Colour Squadron of The RAF
The Royal Air Force had a ceremonial drill unit based at the Royal Air Force Depot at Uxbridge in Middlesex since the early 1920s. In 1960, the RAF Drill Unit was charged with the task of guarding and escorting the Queen's Colour of the Royal Air Force in the United Kingdom, and renamed the Queen's Colour Squadron. It was a pure ceremonial unit for 30 years, providing the sole escort to the colour, and famed for its displays of exhibition drill, which are performed without a single word of command. However, the Options for Change reforms led to the squadron being given an operational role as a field squadron in addition to its ceremonial role. For this, it was given the 'number plate' of No 63 Squadron, being renamed The Queen's Colour Squadron RAF (No 63 Squadron RAF Regiment).
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Famous quotes containing the words queen, colour and/or squadron:
“Oh Sleep! it is a gentle thing,
Beloved from pole to pole!
To Mary Queen the praise be given!
She sent the gentle sleep from Heaven,
That slid into my soul.”
—Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772–1834)
“Iconic clothing has been secularized.... A guardsman in a dress uniform is ostensibly an icon of aggression; his coat is red as the blood he hopes to shed. Seen on a coat-hanger, with no man inside it, the uniform loses all its blustering significance and, to the innocent eye seduced by decorative colour and tactile braid, it is as abstract in symbolic information as a parasol to an Eskimo. It becomes simply magnificent.”
—Angela Carter (1940–1992)
“Well gentlemen, this is it. This is what we’ve been waiting for. Tonight your target is Tokyo. And you’re gonna play ‘em the Star Spangled Banner with two-ton bombs. All you’ve got to do is to remember what you’ve learned and follow your squadron leaders. They’ll get you in, and they’ll get you out. Any questions? All right that’s all. Good luck to you. Give ‘em hell.”
—Dudley Nichols (1895–1960)