The wartime bomber station that became the RAF’s training hub
THE RAF station at Linton-on-Ouse will no doubt evoke memories for thousands of military personnel who passed through its doors, the role of the site for 60 years clear to anyone who read the mission sign erected at its entrance: To train tomorrow’s fast jet pilots.
RAF Linton-on-Ouse Station Sign Available to Purchase Here
It was the late 1950s when the picturesque site ten mile north west of York, just north of the village of the same name, passed to the control of the RAF’s Training Command, spending the next 60-plus years training pilots of both the RAF and Royal Navy, 20 years after it first opened.
It was two years before the outbreak of WWII that the first aircraft took off from the grass runways of Linton-on-Ouse, part of the rapid expansion programme of the RAF that took place in the 1930s as the British Government aimed to counter Germany’s increasing air strength.
Allocated as a bomber airfield, Linton became the home to No. 4 Group RAF from May 13, 1937, with Nos. 51 and 58 the first units to arrive from Boscombe Down, both flying Armstrong Whitleys. However, waterlogging of the runways soon proved problematic, especially in the winter months, and a few weeks before war was declared, work began to create two concrete airstrips, a third added in 1942.
(Armourers prepare 500-lb GP bombs for Armstrong Whitworth Whitley of 58 Squadron at RAF Linton-on-Ouse in 1940)
While work was ongoing to lay the new runways, operations continued, and on the day Prime Minster Neville Chamberlain announced to the nation that Britain was at war with Germany – September 3, 1939 – aircraft from Linton-on-Ouse took off to drop around six million propaganda leaflets over Hamburg, Bremen, and Ruhr.
The propaganda war soon gave way to live bombing raids launched from the North Yorkshire site, a number of occupied countries, including Norway and the Netherlands, targeted along with Germany, the station becoming a target itself for the aircraft of the Luftwaffe. On the night of May 11/12 in 1941, a German bombing raid saw 13 killed at Linton-on-Ouse, a memorial to those who lost their lives now stands at the site.
The station continued to serve its bomber role throughout the role with the Whitleys giving way to other aircraft, with four-engine Lancasters operating under the control of the Royal Canadian Air Force (RCAF), No. 6 Group RCAF formed at the station in October 1942.
(A 408 Squadron Lancaster Mk II at RAF Linton-on-Ouse in 1943)
One such Lancaster flown by the RCAF out of Linton-on-Ouse was KB993, with tragedy striking the crew just a few days after the war had ended. The aircraft was taking part in a training exercise, carrying out bumps and circuits without a navigator on the evening of May 18, 1945, in an area from Yorkshire across to Derbyshire.
However, after several circuits, the crew, who were expecting to soon be heading back to Canada, decided to take advantage of the clear night and fly around the area until they were due to land back at Linton-on-Ouse. While operating the Lancaster it appears they became disorientated when darkness fell, ending up circling Glossop in the Peak District; at 10.10pm the crew misjudged the height of nearby hills and crashed into ‘James’s Thorn’, all six on board killed.
In 1995 a memorial stone was erected at the crash site, the families of the crew arriving from Canada with local news reporting on the ceremony attended by, amongst others, 91-year-old Marion Clifford, whose son Anthony Arthur Clifford was the pilot. Two months after the KB993 accident, on July 24, 1945, a C-47 Skytrain (Dakota) troop carrier crashed in poor weather conditions at the same site, all seven on board killed, the names of all 13 servicemen remembered on the memorial stone.
Once the bomber crews had all departed Linton-on-Ouse post WWII, the site changed from a bomber station to a fighter centre, Gloster Meteors and Hawker Hunters among the aircraft operating until the mid-1950s, when the station closed for maintenance ahead of re-opening in the role that many RAF personnel best know it for – training.
On September 1, 1957. RAF Linton-on-Ouse was transferred to Flying Training Command, No. Flying Training School, FTS, arriving in October 1958, Provost T1 trainers and De Havilland Vampire T11s used to put RAF personnel, and their counterparts in the Royal Navy’s Fleet Air Arm, through their paces.
Despite its role as the RAF’s training centre, the site was also used as motorsport track in the early 1960s, the 1.7-mile Linton-on-Ouse circuit a short-lived venue utilised by the British Racing and Sports Car Club. The final race in 1961 became synonymous with the dangers associated with motor racing, a flag marshal killed before a campaign was launched to ensure marshals worked face-to-face as opposed to back-to-back – a system change that is still in use across the world today.
(A Short Tucano T1 at RAF Linton-on-Ouse)
Updated versions of the Provost continued to be flown until the early 1990s, when the sea of red and white Provost T3As and T5As were replaced by the black Short Tucano T1, an aircraft made in Northern Ireland and inextricably linked to the North Yorkshire airfield. The mid-1990s saw Linton-on-Ouse become the centre for Tucano flying training in the UK, student pilots progressing from the Grob Tutor to the Tucano, before fast jet work moved on to the Hawk.
It was 2014 that the decision was made by the MoD that fast-jet training would in future be centred at RAF Valley on Anglesey, with the writing on the wall for Linton-on-Ouse, 2018 confirmation arriving that the site would be disposed of if no alternative military use was found.
Flying training officially ended at Linton-on-Ouse in October 2019 when the final student pilots graduated, the Yorkshire Universities Air Squadron the final unit to depart, relocating to RAF Leeming in December 2020. In August 2021, Linton-on-Ouse was a returning site for military personnel evacuated from Kabul as part of Operation Pitting, the Yorkshire station used to support Covid-19 countermeasures.
