Eagle Squadrons

Eagle Squadrons
RAF Eagle Squadron Emblem, 1940
Active	19 September 1940 – 29 September 1942
Country	United Kingdom
Allegiance	United Kingdom  United States (September 1942)
Branch	Royal Air Force
Aircraft flown
Fighter	Miles Master Hawker Hurricane Supermarine Spitfire

The Eagle Squadrons were three fighter squadrons of the Royal Air Force (RAF) formed with volunteer pilots from the United States during the early days of World War II (1940), prior to the United States' entry into the war in December 1941.

With the United States still neutral, many Americans simply crossed the border and joined the Royal Canadian Air Force (RCAF) to learn to fly and fight. Many early recruits had originally gone to Europe to fight for Finland against the Soviet Union in the Winter War.

Charles Sweeny, a wealthy businessman living in London, persuaded the British Government to form an RAF squadron composed of Americans.^[1] (His uncle, also named Charles Sweeny, had been working along similar lines, recruiting American pilots to fight in France.^[1]) Sweeny's efforts were also coordinated in Canada by the World War I air ace Billy Bishop and the artist Clayton Knight, who formed the Clayton Knight Committee, which by the time the United States entered the war, had processed and approved 6,700 applications from Americans to join the RCAF or RAF. Sweeny and his rich society contacts bore the cost (over $100,000) of processing and sending the men to the United Kingdom for training.