(Image: Alasdair Preston)
A handful of historic airfields survive throughout the Lothians, not least RAF Turnhouse, which later became Edinburgh International Airport, and the old Fighter Command bases at Drem and East Fortune. But there’s another intriguing airfield in the area, too, and it’s still in use – despite appearances.
(Image: Alasdair Preston)
With its small wartime hangar, a couple of blister shelters and typical intersecting runway layout of the period, RAF Kirknewton near Balerno must be one of the best surviving examples of an austere, hastily-built fighter airfield of World War Two. The site, and its three concrete runways, remains MOD property and is home to No. 661 Volunteer Gliding Squadron, though at first glance (and, perhaps, second) the airfield and its decrepit buildings look almost abandoned.
(Image: Google Street View; RAF Kirknewton’s small technical site)
Situated several miles to the west of Edinburgh, Scotland, RAF Kirknewton has a varied history which saw it open, primarily as a radar station, in November 1941.
(Image: Adrian Pingstone; one of the last airworthy Hawker Hurricanes)
During this time it was also home to No. 289 Squadron RAF, an anti-aircraft cooperation unit operating a variety of planes, including Lysanders, Blenheims, Hurricanes and Hudsons, in simulated attacks to help train the personnel of Scotland’s anti-aircraft defence network.
(Image: H. Hensser; Bristol Beaufighter armed with a torpedo)
But what may be remembered as the airfield’s defining moment came one fateful day in June 1943, when 28-year-old Squadron Leader Peter Guy Ottewill saved two aircrew from the burning wreck of a Bristol Beaufighter. The stricken aircraft, which was fully fueled and armed, had crashed on takeoff into Kirknewton’s ammunition dump, bursting into flames as bullets burst around its burning carcass.
(Image: Bing Maps; typical wartime runway layout at Kirknewton)
Ottewill, who had been severely injured in a previous incident when his Hurricane was shot down, which saw him become one of the first ever servicemen to recieve plastic surgery, was awarded the George Medal for his bravery. He survived the war and later flew with the Royal Australian Air Force in Korea. He died in 2003 in Reigate, Surrey, at the age of 87.
(Image: Google Street View; Kirknewton’s main wartime hangar)
Meanwhile, 289 Squadron would later move to RAF Turnhouse before disbanding in the summer of 1945. Kirknewton’s accommodation area, known as Ritchie Camp, located to the west of the runways, was later redeveloped for housing. The base was also used as a temporary holding area for downed German officers who had been taken prisoners of war.
(Image: Google Street View; dilapidated structure with blister hangars beyond)
But the airfield’s fascinating history didn’t come to a close with the end of the Second World War. During the Cold War, from 1952 to 1966, the US Air Force took over Kirknewton, providing mobile radio communications, tracking Soviet air operations and intercepting Morse code transmissions. In a less glamourous role, the airfield’s three concrete runways would later be used for driver training until 1986.
(Image: Google Street View; Kirknewton’s runways were built on a sloping site)
Plans to completely redevelop the site at RAF Kirknewton into a major army barracks were cancelled amid budget cuts in 2013. As a result the rundown wartime airfield looks much as it did before, home to a few light aircraft and No. 661 Squadron’s small fleet of Grob Viking gliders – which were manufactured, perhaps ironically, in Germany.
Related – The Abandoned Yorkshire Airfields of No. 4 Group, RAF Bomber Command
The post RAF Kirknewton: An Austere Airfield Survivor of World War Two appeared first on Urban Ghosts.