HMS Vulture II was an aerial bombing and gunnery range at Treligga, 2 km west of

Delabole Delabole ( kw, Delyow Boll) is a large village and civil parish in north Cornwall, England, UK. It is situated approximately two miles (3 km) west of Camelford. The village of Delabole came into existence in the early 20th-century; it is ...

Cornwall Cornwall (; kw, Kernow ) is a historic county and ceremonial county in South West England. It is recognised as one of the Celtic nations, and is the homeland of the Cornish people. Cornwall is bordered to the north and west by the Atlantic ...

, England,

United Kingdom The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Europe, off the north-western coast of the continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotland, Wales and North ...

(). The station was a satellite of the

Fleet Air Arm The Fleet Air Arm (FAA) is one of the five fighting arms of the Royal Navy and is responsible for the delivery of naval air power both from land and at sea. The Fleet Air Arm operates the F-35 Lightning II for maritime strike, the AW159 Wil ...

base

RNAS St Merryn (HMS Vulture) RNAS St Merryn (HMS Vulture) is a former Royal Naval Air Station of the Royal Navy's Fleet Air Arm. The site is located northeast of Newquay, Cornwall and northwest of Bodmin, Cornwall, England. History RNAS St Merryn was constructed during W ...

near

Padstow Padstow (; kw, Lannwedhenek) is a town, civil parishes in England, civil parish and fishing port on the north coast of Cornwall, England. The town is situated on the west bank of the River Camel estuary approximately northwest of Wadebridge, ...

. Although HMS Vulture II had landing strips they were however rarely used. Unusually, the entire operation at HMS Vulture II was staffed by the

Women's Royal Naval Service The Women's Royal Naval Service (WRNS; popularly and officially known as the Wrens) was the women's branch of the United Kingdom's Royal Navy. First formed in 1917 for the First World War, it was disbanded in 1919, then revived in 1939 at the ...

Uses

Before the

Second World War World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

HMS Vulture II was used as a

glider Glider may refer to: Aircraft and transport Aircraft * Glider (aircraft), heavier-than-air aircraft primarily intended for unpowered flight ** Glider (sailplane), a rigid-winged glider aircraft with an undercarriage, used in the sport of glidin ...

site. However the

Admiralty Admiralty most often refers to: *Admiralty, Hong Kong *Admiralty (United Kingdom), military department in command of the Royal Navy from 1707 to 1964 *The rank of admiral *Admiralty law Admiralty can also refer to: Buildings * Admiralty, Traf ...

requisitioned some of land (between

Tregardock Tregardock ( kw, Tregaradek, meaning ''homestead of Caradoc'') is a coastal hamlet and beach in the civil parish of Delabole in north Cornwall, England, United Kingdom. It is situated between Trebarwith Strand and Port Gaverne. The small beach ...

and Backways Cove) in late 1939 for the purposes of constructing a bombing (air to ground) and gunnery (air to sea) range. It was decided that three grass landing strips would be marked out at HMS Vulture II (between Tregonnick Tail and Treligga village, each around 580 metres long) so that if an aircraft sustained engine failure or

ricochet A ricochet ( ; ) is a rebound, bounce, or skip off a surface, particularly in the case of a projectile. Most ricochets are caused by accident and while the force of the deflection decelerates the projectile, it can still be energetic and almost ...

damage whilst firing on the range, it would be possible to land. This involved a lot of earth moving and heavy machinery was brought in to complete the work. To the north of the tower, the head of a valley was filled and levelled. The ground on the landing strips was considered too rough for normal take offs and landings. The landing strips were intended only for

belly landing A belly landing or gear-up landing occurs when an aircraft lands without its landing gear fully extended and uses its underside, or belly, as its primary landing device. Normally the term ''gear-up landing'' refers to incidents in which the pilot ...

s (wheels-up), in an emergency. Later however the surface was improved and some traffic did use the landing strips.

Planes which used HMS Vulture II

Squadrons using the range included the Fighter Pool 748 Squadron, and the School of Air Combat 736 Squadron. *

Avro Lancaster The Avro Lancaster is a British Second World War heavy bomber. It was designed and manufactured by Avro as a contemporary of the Handley Page Halifax, both bombers having been developed to the same specification, as well as the Short Stirlin ...

Avro Shackleton The Avro Shackleton is a British long-range maritime patrol aircraft (MPA) which was used by the Royal Air Force (RAF) and the South African Air Force (SAAF). It was developed by Avro from the Avro Lincoln bomber, which itself had been a devel ...

De Havilland Mosquito The de Havilland DH.98 Mosquito is a British twin-engined, shoulder-winged, multirole combat aircraft, introduced during the Second World War. Unusual in that its frame was constructed mostly of wood, it was nicknamed the "Wooden Wonder", or ...

Fairey Albacore The Fairey Albacore is a single-engine biplane torpedo bomber designed and produced by the British aircraft manufacturer Fairey Aviation. It was primarily operated by the Royal Navy Fleet Air Arm (FAA) and was heavily used during the Second ...

( target towing) *

Fairey Barracuda The Fairey Barracuda was a British carrier-borne torpedo and dive bomber designed by Fairey Aviation. It was the first aircraft of this type operated by the Royal Navy's Fleet Air Arm (FAA) to be fabricated entirely from metal. The Barracuda ...

Fairey Firefly The Fairey Firefly is a Second World War-era carrier-borne fighter aircraft and anti-submarine aircraft that was principally operated by the Fleet Air Arm (FAA). It was developed and built by the British aircraft manufacturer Fairey Aviatio ...

Fairey Gannet The Fairey Gannet is a carrier-borne aircraft that was designed and produced by the British aircraft manufacturer the Fairey Aviation Company. It was developed for the Royal Navy, being the first fixed-wing aircraft to combine both the search an ...

Fairey Swordfish The Fairey Swordfish is a biplane torpedo bomber, designed by the Fairey Aviation Company. Originating in the early 1930s, the Swordfish, nicknamed "Stringbag", was principally operated by the Fleet Air Arm of the Royal Navy. It was also used ...

Hawker Hurricane The Hawker Hurricane is a British single-seat fighter aircraft of the 1930s–40s which was designed and predominantly built by Hawker Aircraft Ltd. for service with the Royal Air Force (RAF). It was overshadowed in the public consciousness by ...

Hawker Sea Fury The Hawker Sea Fury is a British fighter aircraft designed and manufactured by Hawker Aircraft. It was the last propeller-driven fighter to serve with the Royal Navy, and one of the fastest production single reciprocating engine aircraft e ...

Lockheed P-2 Neptune The Lockheed P-2 Neptune (designated P2V by the United States Navy prior to September 1962) is a maritime patrol and anti-submarine warfare (ASW) aircraft. It was developed for the US Navy by Lockheed to replace the Lockheed PV-1 Ventura and ...

Miles Master The Miles M.9 Master was a British two-seat monoplane advanced trainer designed and built by aviation company Miles Aircraft Ltd. It was inducted in large numbers into both the Royal Air Force (RAF) and Fleet Air Arm (FAA) during the Second Wor ...

Short Sunderland The Short S.25 Sunderland is a British flying boat patrol bomber, developed and constructed by Short Brothers for the Royal Air Force (RAF). The aircraft took its service name from the town (latterly, city) and port of Sunderland in North East ...

Supermarine Seafire The Supermarine Seafire is a naval version of the Supermarine Spitfire adapted for operation from aircraft carriers. It was analogous in concept to the Hawker Sea Hurricane, a navalised version of the Spitfire's stablemate, the Hawker Hurri ...

Supermarine Spitfire The Supermarine Spitfire is a British single-seat fighter aircraft used by the Royal Air Force and other Allied countries before, during, and after World War II. Many variants of the Spitfire were built, from the Mk 1 to the Rolls-Royce Grif ...

Buildings

Several buildings were constructed the most obvious being a 10 metre high brick control/observation tower in the middle of the area. Towards Backways Cove and located in what was the main ground target area there is a reinforced concrete marker shelter where the markers (naval personnel)scored and repaired/maintained the six gunnery targets located either side of the shelter. Accommodation for the

Wrens Wrens are a family of brown passerine birds in the predominantly New World family Troglodytidae. The family includes 88 species divided into 19 genera. Only the Eurasian wren occurs in the Old World, where, in Anglophone regions, it is comm ...

was built on the

side of

Port Gaverne Port Gaverne is a hamlet on the north coast of Cornwall, England, UK, about east of Port Isaac and part of St Endellion parish. Although it is a geographically discrete hamlet, some consider it as part of the larger village of Port Isaac locat ...

and early in its life HMS Vulture II was unique in being run entirely by

. Later the base was run by Fleet Air Arm personnel, some living on the site and some commuting from

St Merryn St Merryn ( kw, S. Meryn) is a civil parishes in England, civil parish and village in north Cornwall, England, United Kingdom. It is about south of the fishing port of Padstow and northeast of the coastal resort of Newquay. The village has a ...

. Facilities eventually included a grass tennis court for the WRENS to use. The tennis posts were still extant into the early 1990's. Off-site were other associated buildings, at Treligga Downs near the building later renamed the Poldark Inn, a building was used for counting holes in

drogue A drogue (also known as a storm drogue) is a device trailed behind a boat on a long line attached to the stern. A drogue is used to slow the boat down in a storm and to prevent the hull (watercraft), hull from becoming side-on to the water waves ...

targets. These were dropped by towing aircraft and retrieved by the

, who laid them out on long tables and counted the holes. A reward of five shillings (25p) was offered to any member of the public who found a missing target. There was a further dive screen shelter (block built) in afield near Trebarwith Village and targets were positioned in

Port Isaac Port Isaac ( kw, Porthysek) is a small fishing village on the Atlantic coast of north Cornwall, England, in the United Kingdom. The nearest towns are Wadebridge and Camelford, each ten miles (16 km) away. A nearby hamlet, Port Gaverne, is ...

bay for air to sea attacks. Near the cliff at Dannon Chapel was a quadrant shelter (equipped with a quadrant) which was used to assess the accuracy of attacks on floating bombing targets. This shelter (useful for walkers on the coastal footpath) was demolished in the late 1990's when the National Trust decided it was an eyesore.

HMS Vulture II modelled on a Pacific island

When action moved to the Japanese war in the

Pacific The Pacific Ocean is the largest and deepest of Earth's five oceanic divisions. It extends from the Arctic Ocean in the north to the Southern Ocean (or, depending on definition, to Antarctica) in the south, and is bounded by the continen ...

HMS Vulture II was adapted to represent the typical lay-out of a Japanese-held territory and was modelled on the island of

Tarawa Tarawa is an atoll and the capital of the Republic of Kiribati,Kiribati
''

tank A tank is an armoured fighting vehicle intended as a primary offensive weapon in front-line ground combat. Tank designs are a balance of heavy firepower, strong armour, and good battlefield mobility provided by tracks and a powerful engin ...

s, a bridge and a road convoy were located near one of the airstrips and a small railway was built to provide moving targets. By December 1944 squadron commanders and senior pilots destined for the Pacific were using it for intensive training. The tanks which numbered at least 6 and possibly 10 arrived at

by rail and were driven through the village from the station to Treligga, several front steps and gates and at least one small building were demolished by the tanks during this operation.

Post World War II

After the war, the range continued in operation for the School of Naval Air Warfare and was in great demand by squadrons detached to RNAS St Merryn for armament practice until the early 1950s. It has been recalled that Treligga was used as an air to ground rocket range and rocket firing became a daily occurrence. In particular

s using the range would continuously fire rockets from a release point near Trecarne Quarry for several hours and must have kept the ground crews at RNAS St Merryn busy in rapid reloading and turnaround since these

Gannets Gannets are seabirds comprising the genus ''Morus'' in the family Sulidae, closely related to boobies. Gannets are large white birds with yellowish heads; black-tipped wings; and long bills. Northern gannets are the largest seabirds in the Nor ...

could only carry 6 rockets. As naval use declined, it was also made available to the

RAF The Royal Air Force (RAF) is the United Kingdom's air and space force. It was formed towards the end of the First World War on 1 April 1918, becoming the first independent air force in the world, by regrouping the Royal Flying Corps (RFC) and ...

and

Shackleton Sir Ernest Henry Shackleton (15 February 1874 – 5 January 1922) was an Anglo-Irish Antarctic explorer who led three British expeditions to the Antarctic. He was one of the principal figures of the period known as the Heroic Age of An ...

squadrons from the base at

RAF St Eval Royal Air Force St. Eval or RAF St. Eval was a Royal Air Force station for the RAF Coastal Command, southwest of Padstow in Cornwall, England, UK. St Eval's primary role was to provide anti-submarine and anti-shipping patrols off the south wes ...

used it for air-to-ground firing at tanks fitted with recording equipment. But with the withdrawal of lying units from RNAS St Merryn in 1954 and changes made to Shackletons during 1955, the range was closed at the end of that year and quickly reverted to farmland.

Emergency landing of a B-17 Flying Fortress

On 16 September 1943 an American

B-17 Flying Fortress The Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress is a four-engined heavy bomber developed in the 1930s for the United States Army Air Corps (USAAC). Relatively fast and high-flying for a bomber of its era, the B-17 was used primarily in the European Theater ...

was forced to make an emergency landing at HMS Vulture II. The pilot, Capt Jack Omohundro had ignored a red flare warning him to keep clear. The plane was chronically short of fuel and running on three engines after a raid on

U-boat U-boats were naval submarines operated by Germany, particularly in the First and Second World Wars. Although at times they were efficient fleet weapons against enemy naval warships, they were most effectively used in an economic warfare role ...

pens at

Nantes Nantes (, , ; Gallo: or ; ) is a city in Loire-Atlantique on the Loire, from the Atlantic coast. The city is the sixth largest in France, with a population of 314,138 in Nantes proper and a metropolitan area of nearly 1 million inhabita ...

France France (), officially the French Republic ( ), is a country primarily located in Western Europe. It also comprises of Overseas France, overseas regions and territories in the Americas and the Atlantic Ocean, Atlantic, Pacific Ocean, Pac ...

. The

bomber A bomber is a military combat aircraft designed to attack ground and naval targets by dropping air-to-ground weaponry (such as bombs), launching aerial torpedo, torpedoes, or deploying air-launched cruise missiles. The first use of bombs dropped ...

had left its formation to try to preserve what little fuel it had left. Spotting the tiny Treligga airstrip, he skillfully landed 'wheels-down' just short of the

quarters. When the Americans stepped out of their aircraft they were amazed to find HMS Vulture II entirely in the hands of

. After a meal and a nights sleep, the B-17 had to be stripped down for a successful take-off out over the sea a skeleton crew then flew the B-17 to RAF coastal command station at

for full refuelling and a safety check.

Crashes

There have been a number of air crashes whilst the range was in use. One occurred when a

Seafire ''SeaFire'', first published in 1994, was the fourteenth novel by John Gardner featuring Ian Fleming's secret agent, James Bond (including Gardner's novelization of ''Licence to Kill''). Carrying the Glidrose Publications copyright, it was f ...

crashed into the railway embankment near Barton Farm at 2.00 pm on Thursday 1 November 1951. The pilot was killed. There have been other crashes near Barton Farm including a

C-47 Skytrain The Douglas C-47 Skytrain or Dakota (Royal Air Force, RAF, Royal Australian Air Force, RAAF, Royal Canadian Air Force, RCAF, Royal New Zealand Air Force, RNZAF, and South African Air Force, SAAF designation) is a airlift, military transport ai ...

carrying South African soldiers which was attempting a landing on one of the large fields to the north east of the farm. Other crashes include a

Swordfish Swordfish (''Xiphias gladius''), also known as broadbills in some countries, are large, highly migratory predatory fish characterized by a long, flat, pointed bill. They are a popular sport fish of the billfish category, though elusive. Swordfis ...

in Trebarwith Valley with three fatalities, a further

at sea and possibly a Blenheim near Tregonnick Farm.

HMS Vulture II today

Both the observation/control tower and the reinforced hut near the sea (towards Backways Cove) are derelict but still standing as are the accommodation and service huts near Treligga village. All are in remarkably good structural condition considering their age and exposed position.

References

* The ''Western Morning News'' 13 September 2006 pages 28–29

External links

Some photographs of what HMS Vulture II looks like today
{{Cornwall, state=collapsed Vulture II (Treligga Aerodrome) Military history of Cornwall VultureII