RAF Devon

While you may think the South West of the country largely avoided the aerial assaults on Britain during Second World War, you’d be wrong, with the Luftwaffe using sites in North West France to repeatedly hit a region that proudly boasted a maritime heritage and one of the country’s major ports at Plymouth. The Air Ministry requisitioned sites already in use for aviation as well as creating new stations during WWII, with a number of locations across the county of Devon marking the region’s strong links with the RAF.

The county also had a number of home radar stations dotted along its coastline, with Hope Cove the most notable, and its own RAF medical facility, an officers’ hospital located in the requisitioned Palace Hotel at Babbacombe on the outskirts of Torquay. The RAF Hospital Torquay was a site that became infamous for being the target of German bombers, despite a clearly marked red cross on its roof: on October 25, 1942, four Focke-Wulf 190s flew low over the sea to hit the medical facility, with 14 RAF officers, five staff and two members of the Home Guard killed in the attack.

Located around one mile south west of Salcombe on the south Devon coast, Bolt Head opened as a satellite for RAF Exeter (see below), with the site soon expanded to include a Ground Control Interceptor (GCI) Station – Hope Cove (see below) – on site.

Bolt Head consisted of two grass runways with Sommerfield tracking laid down, the location playing host to mainly fighter units but it was No. 16 Squadron that was one of the first arrivals with their Lysanders, operating patrols over the coastline. The site was the location for a wartime tragedy on March 15, 1942 when the Spitfires of Nos. 306 and 317 (Polish) Squadrons were returning from a mission over France, low on fuel, and arriving to a region hit by fog: heading for RAF Culmhead in Somerset and RAF Exeter, they contacted Hope Cove hoping to be guided to a safe landing spot when they realised they wouldn’t make it home, but one of the Spitfires hit the cliffs near Bolt Head killing the pilot, with five more Spitfires forced into crash landings in the deteriorating weather conditions – thankfully with no more fatalities. While Hope Cove remained in operation until the 1990s, Bolt Head closed soon after the war ended.

The site near the north Devon coast opened midway through the 1930s as a civil airfield before it was taken over and expanded by the RAF early in 1940 to be used as a Coastal Command station. The first detachment at the site late in 1940 was No. 3 (Coastal) Operational Training Unit, OTU, flying Avro Ansons and Bristol Beauforts. On April 15, 1941, the station, located around ten miles North West of Bideford, was attacked by five Heinkel bombers which damaged a number of aircraft and put Chivenor out of action for a number of days; however, it was soon back in action, and from 1942 its role changed from training to anti-submarine patrolling.

Post war, Chivenor became a centre for meteorological investigation as well as a training site, with No. 22 Squadron operating a Search and Rescue flight from Chivenor from 1956 flying a range of helicopters, ending with the Sea King. During the 1970s the station was placed under care and maintenance, the RAF returning in 1979 with BAE Systems Hawks operating, a unit created at Chivenor that later became No. 7 Flying Training School (FTS) which moved on to RAF Valley when the site closed as a RAF station. Chivenor became a Royal Marines base in 1995.

                             

       RAF Chivenor base is now used by the Royal Marines.

Opening midway through WWII at a site five miles north of Honiton, Dunkeswell was earmarked as a fighter station or part of Coastal Command, but was immediately transferred over to the USAAF, who used it to fly anti-submarine missions over the Bay of Biscay using customised Consolidated B-24 Liberators.

Post war, the station was used by No. 16 Ferry Unit to transfer aircraft to the Middle East until 1948 when the station was put under care and maintenance until it was sold.

Starting life offering a civilian air service to the Channel Islands midway through the 1930s, Exeter was requisitioned by the Air Ministry in September 1939, new runways constructed with the first unit arriving, the Research Development Flight from Farnborough, operating Fairey Battles among other aircraft. The Gunnery Research Unit was formed at the station four miles east of the city in June 1940, testing armaments on a number of aircraft including Spitfires, Hurricanes and Boulton Paul Defiants, with the site coming under attack from the Luftwaffe on a number of occasions.

In April 1944 it became home to the 440th Troop Carrier Group, used as a D-Day troop transport base, dropping paratroopers on the Normandy Beachhead. Post war, Exeter returned under the control of Fighter Command with No. 691 Squadron one of its last RAF residents, and when they departed in the summer of 1946 it was again made available for civil use.

Located around nine miles North East of Plymouth, Harrowbeer was located within the Dartmoor National Park and came under the control of No. 10 Group RAF upon opening in August 1941. No. 193 Squadron was one of its first residents, patrolling the coast to intercept low-level attacks from Luftwaffe fighter bombers flying from French airfields. Among its guests during WW2 was US President Harry Truman, returning from the Potsdam Conference in Germany when he met with Churchill and Stalin, ahead of transferring to USS Augusta for his voyage home across the Atlantic.

Numerous fighter squadrons were based at Harrowbeer during WW2, the site also pivotal in the early development of air-sea rescue squadrons, No. 276 maintaining an HQ at the station between October 1941 and April 1944. Post war, Harrowbeer’s use diminished until it finally closed in 1950.

A radar station was established on the site of RAF Bolt Head on the south Devon coast near Salcombe in 1941, Hope Cove forming part of the ground control interception (GCI) system that operated across the UK during WWII, linked to a command communication centre able to mobilise defences. The station was revamped and became part of the ROTOR network created to counter the Soviet threat during the 1950s, equipped with a ‘semi-sunk’ bunker, with the site wound down following the end of the first Cold War.

It was the early 1910s that Cattewater in Plymouth, at the mouth of the River Plym, was used for seaplane trials, RNAS Cattewater later established midway through WWI with a hangar and areas for storage and maintenance of aircraft, Short 184s operating. When the RAF was created in April 1918 the station became RAF Cattewater, a decade later being rebuilt and reopened as RAF Mount Batten to defend south west England, No. 203 Squadron one of the first new arrivals flying Supermarine Southampton seaplanes.

Defending the key naval site saw it become a target for the Luftwaffe during WWII, one of its hangars destroyed during a raid in November 1940, the station essentially becoming a RAF maintenance site at the end of the hostilities.

Post war, Mount Batten became a centre for the RAF Marine Branch, the section of the service that operated sea-based craft in support of RAF operations, until its closure in the mid-1980s when a large section of the station’s work was moved to St Mawgan in Cornwall.

        Closed: 1960

 

The site at the northern edge of Dartmoor, around 24 miles west of Exeter, had an airfield at Folly Gate which opened in the late 1920s, RAF units arriving for exercises throughout the years leading up to WWII, the station also used from 1939 for reconnaissance flights around the nearby coast.

 

The station was also an important maintenance unit during the war, No. 73 MU using the site from December 1942 as a Forward Holding Unit (FHU) until the end of hostilities. Post war, the site continued to be used as a maintenance centre for aircraft parts, until it was eventually vacated by the RAF around 1960.

 

       Closed: 1919

 

An airfield was established during WWI three miles south east of Salcombe on the south Devon coast, originally RNAS Prawle Point, it saw De Havilland DH6s and DH9s operating on anti-submarine patrols. Nos. 254 and 260 Squadrons started operating from the location when it became a RAF station on the establishment of the service in April 1918, before its closure in 1919.

 

       Closed: 1950; returned to use as a civilian airport

 

Aircraft activity started at the site four miles north of Plymouth in the early 1920s at what became the City Airport, utilised by the Air Ministry for joint exercises involving the RAF, the Royal Navy and the Army in the 1930s. The station initially became a RNAS site before it was taken over by the RAF on May 1, 1942, primarily for use by RAF Coastal Command. During the Battle of Britain, the airfield was under the control of No. 10 Group RAF, a range of aircraft including Hurricanes flying sorties from the site, with No. 247 Squadron flying Gloster Gladiators from Roborough until February 1941, and later operating Hurricanes, before moving on to RAF Portreath in Cornwall.

 

The station continued to be used by Coastal Command, with No. 691 Squadron formed at the site on December 1, 1943, before the airfield returned to full-time civilian use in 1950.

 

      Closed: 1919

 

During WWI, a station was created at the harbour in the seaside town, with seaplanes operating from the site; a kite observation post was also created at Berry Head near Brixham working in conjunction with RAF Torquay, to warn Devonport’s warships of any potential German attack.

 

       Closed: 1948

 

A late addition to the WWII effort, Upottery only opened in February 1944, the station located around six miles north east of Honiton earmarked as a bomber station for the USAAF, but it became a transport centre with Douglas C-47s a regular sight at the airfield; the 439th Troop Carrier Group dropping paratroops of the US 101st Airborne Division on D-Day. The US Navy were also visitors, with their expertise used in anti-submarine patrols, control of Upottery returning to the RAF at the end of the war. For several years after the end of hostilities, the station was used as a maintenance store centre, before its closure; despite the longevity since it returned to agricultural use, its three runways are still visible from the air.

      Closed: 1919

 

Towards the end of WWI, a landing ground was established near what is now the Northern Burrows Country Park in Westward Ho!, the north Devon coastal village used by aircraft to carry out coastal reconnaissance.

 

       Opened: 1943 

       Closed: 1958

 

Work on a station at Winkleigh, around 18 miles south of Barnstaple, began in 1940, the idea being for the site to support RAF Coastal Command, but delays in its construction due to unsuitable ground conditions meant it only opened early in 1943, by which time it was earmarked as a Fighter Command station. It saw little use in that role and was taken over by the USAAF which used it for pre-invasion exercises ahead of D-Day, before it was returned to RAF control; the station was also used as flying school by the Norwegian Air Force, with members of the Royal Canadian Air Force also utilising its facilities.

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