In August 1917, after several months operational training at Harlaxton in England and after several pilots had been posted to RFC units for Front line training, 2 Sqn Australian Flying Corps finally crossed the English Channel in their deHavilland DH.5's. The first flight safely landed at St Omer , and within the next day the complete squadron had arrived at Warloy near Baixieux. The first fighter unit of the AFC was ready.

The pilots of 2 Sqn AFC were equipped with the DH.5 , a stumpy pugnacious scout plane with the odd wing arrangement whereby the top wing was behind the lower wing and to the rear of the pilot. As can be imagined this caused difficulties for the pilot with rear vision, an essential aspect for a scout plane. The DH.5 also had the far from endearing quality of shedding valve tappet rods. The rod would cut through the thin engine cowling and slam against the immovable Vickers gun. This impact was often enough for the engine to come off it's mount, nearly always with disastrous results for the pilot. The DH.5 had also earned a reputation for being hard to handle at low speeds, added to the fact the DH.5's performance dropped off radically above 10 000 feet, the pilots of 2 AFC though eager, had a hard time of it early on in their squadrons career.

After the first few operational sorties, the pilots came back with reports of how they were out-distanced by German 2 seater aircraft and the German Scouts, being higher than 10 00 feet , dictating the terms of combat. This unfortunately led to the squadron suffering losses before they scored victories. In October 1917 they suffered their first, Lieutenant I.C. Agnew was driven down and captured, the Australian Flying Corp's first combat loss in France. Shortly afterwards Lieutenant D.G. Morrison was jumped by four Albatros Scouts and died from wounds. These losses continued into November until the squadron was recast into the combat support role with it's DH.5 machines. The DH.5 despite it's one gun but with its good low altitude performance and excellent forward view was ideal in this role. Thick fog added to the dangers of ground fire and low level bombing and strafing. Large formations were dangerous and the squadron split up into pairs to carry out this dangerous work. On the 20th of November 1917 Captain J. Bell was hit by rifle fire and died of his wounds, Lieutenant N. Ward was shot down and captured. During the Battle of Cambrai, more than one third of the squadron was shot down, all suffering at the hands of ground fire, fortunately without furthur loss in personnel.

During this period the German planes, in order to attack allied ground forces had to give up their advantage of height and subsequently meet the DH.5 on it's own terms. The Australian pilots, originally trained as scout pilots took to the low flying German planes. On the 22nd of November, Lieutenant F.G. Huxley surprised an Albatros as he climbed steeply from the ground after a bombing and strafing run. Huxley immeadiately attacked the Albatros and sent it crashing into the ground. On the same day Lieutenant W.R. Howard forced a DFW 2 seater to land behind allied lines. On the 22nd of November, Captain Roy Phillipps, later to be the second top scoring ace in 2 Sqn AFC, started his score by downing a German Scout plane. The squadron continued to score against the German planes as the Battle went though December. Lieutenant Huxley bagged a DFW on the 6th, sending it down in flames. This was 2 Sqn AFC's last victory with the DH.5, it was being replaced with undoubtably one of the best scouts of the war, the SE5.a.

Through this period of 2 Sqn AFC when they were operational with the deHavilland DH.5, one man came to represent the squadron and it's fighting abilities and courage more than any other. He was Lieutenant Leslie H. Holden from Turramurra, Sydney. He earnt himself the nicknames of " Lucky Len" and the "Homing Pigeon" and was the ire of every maintenance mechanic and engineer in 2 Sqn AFC's ground support staff . Often the pilots and ground staff of 2 Sqn AFC were amazed he was able to bring back his DH.5 as they were literally flying wrecks. On the 20th of November the squadron history records Holden's DH5, A9278 as " Petrol tank shot up " and damaged.

During that day Holden dropped his bombs on a communications trench and then he strafed the trench. His aircraft was forced to land at the forward field near Havrincourt Wood, as it was too unairworthy to return to Warloy. Every part of the aircraft was shot full of holes, including the petrol tank , the longerons, the tail plane and part of the undercarraige, while the elevator control had been completely shot away. Two days later Holden was back again bombing and strafing with his now patched DH.5.

In those two days of the Battle of Cambrai, 2 Sqn AFC suffered 9 aircraft losses and the death of Capt J. Bell. On the 22nd of November, Lt Huxley flying the DH.5 A9461 was carrying out an infantry support mission and was strafing German forward positions South West of Raillencourt when an Albatros jumped out of the mist and haze infront of him as Huxley zoomed at the end of a strafing run. Huxley promptly poured a barrage of bullets from the DH.5's single Vickers into the Albatros. It rolled over and crashed, Huxley claimed a " Destroyed " and noted in his combat report, " It was a gift ". This was the squadrons first victory. On the 2nd of October , Holden along with Richard Howard had damaged and chased a German two seater but the enemy plane escaped the underpowered DH.5. Holden was later to get a victory before the squadron re-equipped with the heavily armed and speedier SE5.a's.

Fortunately Holden didn't suffer the same effects of his planes and survived the early period of 2 Sqn AFC's operations without getting wounded. Holden, flying the SE5a's with 2 AFC in March of 1918 carried on with the same attitude and averaged one SE5.a per day in ground attacks until he was wounded on the 22nd of March. The lessons, grit and determination to press attacks learnt in the early days of 2 AFC's operational career were attributes well learnt and put to good use by the pilots of 2 Sqn AFC throughout their operational career. These attributes could even be described as Holden tough.