Hurricane in period colours.

(Photo from DND Canada website)

The Squadron did have a taste of active operations for a period of four months, October l942 to January 1943, when it provided a detachment of three Lysanders and crews for harbour entrance patrols at Sydney, NS, but no submarines were sighted.

No. 123's original aircraft, obsolete Lysanders, were in time replaced by Hurricane fighters, and the Squadron also flew, for training and communications, Harvards, Bolingbrokes, and Ansons. In November 1942 some pilots ware posted overseas and more followed in the next few months. When W/C Ross, the C.O., departed in January 1943 S/L L.C. Rankin, one of the original members of the unit, succeeded him.