(Image: RAFFPU, public domain)
During World War Two, thousands of allied bombers, many of them severely damaged and carrying critically wounded crew, limped back across the North Sea to their home bases in eastern England. But in many cases they couldn’t make it back to their assigned units due to fuel shortages, poor weather or flight control systems completely shot out by enemy fighters and ground fire. As a result, three unusually long and wide landing strips were constructed from Kent to Yorkshire, enabling crippled aircraft to recover safely when their chances of reaching a conventional runway were marginal at best.
The single 9,000 ft strips were built at RAF Manston in Kent, RAF Woodbridge in Suffolk and RAF Carnaby in Yorkshire. At 750 ft wide, they were more than five times the width of conventional wartime runways. Divided into three lanes, the northern and central lanes dealt with aircraft returning under flying control, while the southern lane was reserved for more serious emergencies.
Despite the continued use of each airfield after the Second World War, their additional width was no longer required, leaving much of their massive concrete expanses to fall into disuse and neglect. Today, only the former RAF Carnaby, which finally closed as a military facility in 1963, has changed beyond recognition. But like Manston and Woodbridge, hints of its original use are still visible from above.
RAF Carnaby, Yorkshire
(Image: Google Earth)
The northernmost of the three landing strips, RAF Carnaby opened in March 1944 two miles from the seaside town of Bridlington in the East Riding of Yorkshire. In the relatively short period between its opening and the end of the war, more than 1,400 bombers made emergency landings there. One of 15 bases equipped with the ‘FIDO‘ fog dispersal system, Carnaby remained operational into the Cold War as a Thor missile base.
(Images: Google Street View, Google Earth)
After closing in 1963, the former emergency airfield’s vast concrete topography was used to store Nissan cars until it was ultimately redeveloped as the Carnaby Industrial Estate. With the exception of aptly named streets such as Lancaster Road, little remains at ground level connecting the site to its former role in the effort to save aircraft and their crews. But from above, Google Earth clearly reveals the massive runway’s outline, an obvious and unmissable feature amid the quiet Yorkshire countryside.
RAF Manston, Kent
(Image: Google Earth)
Located at Kent’s most easterly point, known as the Isle of Thanet, the airfield at Manston originally opened during the First World War in 1916 and later came under heavy attack during the Battle of Britain while on the charge of No. 11 Group Fighter Command. Throughout its eventful history, Manston was employed by Barnes Wallis to test his famous bouncing bomb (used in the Dambusters raid) at nearby Reculver Beach, served as a departure point during Operation Market Garden and later hosted the RAF’s first Meteor jet squadron. The airfield was also equipped with FIDO.
(Image: RAF, public domain; above image not taken at Manston, used for illustration only)
As the closest emergency landing ground to the front, RAF Manston soon became an aircraft graveyard for heavy bombers. Severely damaged over mainland Europe and destined never to fly again, their heroic hulks littering the edges of the strip. After the war Manston’s runway was reconfigured to standard for use by the U.S. Air Force’s Strategic Air Command until reverting to RAF oversight in the 1960s. The old base is now Kent International Airport and also operates a training establishment for military firefighters.
RAF Woodbridge, Suffolk
(Image: Imperial War Museum, public domain)
The above photograph of a damaged Lancaster bomber taken at RAF Woodbridge in January 1944 illustrates perfectly the emergency airfield’s role during World War Two. The 550 Squadron Lancaster, numbered DV305 ‘BQ-O’, had been attacked by a German night fighter over Berlin, killing the rear and mid-upper gunners. The pilot, Flying Officer G. A. Morrison, managed to land his crippled bomber, albeit at the Suffolk strip rather than his home base at North Killingholme, Lincolnshire.
(Image: Google Earth)
Originally called RAF Sutton Heath, more than a million trees were cleared from Rendlesham Forest to make way for the Woodbridge site, which became operational in 1943. In July that year, a Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress bomber became the first distressed aircraft to make an emergency landing at Woodbridge. That same month, a German Ju 88 night fighter mistakenly landed there after its inexperienced crew, who had only just completed 100 hours flying training, misinterpreted their compass heading and thought they’d arrived at their own base. Their aircraft was found to be fitted with a radar system that had been successfully used to intercept RAF aircraft. British engineers were able to analyse the system and devise countermeasures.
(Image: USAF, public domain)
Woodbridge remained an RAF base until 1948 when it was passed to the control of the U.S. Air Force. A variety of American fighter planes operated from there during the Cold War until the base was closed in the 1990s. The last A-10 Thunderbolt II departed in August 1993. The site is now used by the British Army Air Corps and an air assault regiment of the Royal Engineers. Surrounding the former RAF Woodbridge’s modern runway, the weed-strewn expanses of its original wartime strip remain evident to this day.
Keep reading – Google Earth Reveals the Ghostly Outlines of Britain’s Wartime Airfields
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