RAAF Base Learmonth, also known as Learmonth Airport , is a joint use

Royal Australian Air Force "Through Adversity to the Stars" , colours = , colours_label = , march = , mascot = , anniversaries = RAAF Anniversary Commemoration ...

base and

civil airport An airport is an aerodrome with extended facilities, mostly for commercial air transport. Airports usually consists of a landing area, which comprises an aerially accessible open space including at least one operationally active surface ...

. It is located near the town of

Exmouth Exmouth is a harbor, port town, civil parishes in England, civil parish and seaside resort, sited on the east bank of the mouth of the River Exe and southeast of Exeter. In 2011 it had a population of 34,432, making Exmouth the List of town ...

on the north-west coast of

Western Australia Western Australia (commonly abbreviated as WA) is a state of Australia occupying the western percent of the land area of Australia excluding external territories. It is bounded by the Indian Ocean to the north and west, the Southern Ocean to th ...

. RAAF Base Learmonth is one of the RAAF's three bare bases. No RAAF units are currently based at Learmonth and it is maintained by a small caretaker staff during peacetime. The RAAF also operates the Learmonth Air Weapons Range which covers about and is located south-west of the airbase.

History

During

World War II 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 ...

a little-known landing field was constructed on the western shore of

Exmouth Gulf Exmouth Gulf is a gulf in the north-west of Western Australia. It lies between North West Cape and the main coastline of Western Australia. It is considered to be part of the Pilbara Coast and Northwest Shelf, and the Carnarvon Basin geologi ...

. It was code-named "Potshot" and maintained by No. 76 Operational Base Unit, in support of

Operation Potshot Exmouth Submarine Base, called Operation Potshot, was a United States Navy base at Exmouth Gulf, Western Australia during World War II. Exmouth Gulf on western Australia was selected as the site for US Naval base as it was thought at the time ...

. In the 1950s the landing field was further developed as a military base and named RAAF Learmonth in honour of Wing Commander

Charles Learmonth Charles Cuthbertson Learmonth DFC & Bar (2 May 1917 – 6 January 1944) was an officer in the Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF) during World War II. He commanded No. 22 Squadron in combat during the New Guinea campaign, and subsequently took o ...

DFC and Bar, who, while leading No. 14 Squadron, was killed in a flying accident off

Rottnest Island Rottnest Island ( nys, Wadjemup), often colloquially referred to as "Rotto", is a island off the coast of Western Australia, located west of Fremantle. A sandy, low-lying island formed on a base of aeolianite limestone, Rottnest is an A-class ...

, Western Australia on 6 January 1944. Starting in June 1944,

Qantas Qantas Airways Limited ( ) is the flag carrier of Australia and the country's largest airline by fleet size, international flights, and international destinations. It is the world's third-oldest airline still in operation, having been founded ...

used Learmonth as an intermediate stop for two converted

Consolidated Liberator The Consolidated B-24 Liberator is an American heavy bomber, designed by Consolidated Aircraft of San Diego, California. It was known within the company as the Model 32, and some initial production aircraft were laid down as export models des ...

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 ...

s that flew a segment of the vital

England England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe b ...

–Australia air route, supplementing modified

Consolidated PBY Catalina The Consolidated PBY Catalina is a flying boat and amphibious aircraft that was produced in the 1930s and 1940s. In Canadian service it was known as the Canso. It was one of the most widely used seaplanes of World War II. Catalinas served w ...

s flying

The Double Sunrise The Double Sunrise service was formed in 1943 to re-establish the Australia–England air link that had been cut due to the fall of Singapore in 1942. The service initially operated from its base in Nedlands, Western Australia near Perth, to th ...

route to

Ceylon Sri Lanka (, ; si, ශ්‍රී ලංකා, Śrī Laṅkā, translit-std=ISO (); ta, இலங்கை, Ilaṅkai, translit-std=ISO ()), formerly known as Ceylon and officially the Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka, is an ...

. The Liberators flew a shorter over-water route from Learmonth to an airfield northeast of

Colombo Colombo ( ; si, කොළඹ, translit=Koḷam̆ba, ; ta, கொழும்பு, translit=Koḻumpu, ) is the executive and judicial capital and largest city of Sri Lanka by population. According to the Brookings Institution, Colombo me ...

, and could make the journey in 17 hours with of payload, whereas the Catalinas usually required at least 27 hours and had to carry so much auxiliary fuel that their payload was limited to only . The route was named ''

Kangaroo Kangaroos are four marsupials from the family Macropodidae (macropods, meaning "large foot"). In common use the term is used to describe the largest species from this family, the red kangaroo, as well as the antilopine kangaroo, eastern gre ...

Service'' and marked the first time that Qantas's now-famous kangaroo logo was used; passengers received a certificate proclaiming them as members of ''The Order of the Longest Hop''. Qantas would again use the base, much later, during the emergency landing of

Qantas Flight 72 Qantas Flight 72 (QF72) was a scheduled flight from Singapore Changi Airport to Perth Airport by an Airbus A330. On 7 October 2008, the flight made an emergency landing at Learmonth Airport near the town of Exmouth, Western Australia following ...

. In the mid-1960s, the Federal Government gave its support to plans by the Chief of the Air Staff, Air Marshal Val Hancock, to redevelop Learmonth as a bare base, due to its proximity to

Indonesia Indonesia, officially the Republic of Indonesia, is a country in Southeast Asia and Oceania between the Indian and Pacific oceans. It consists of over 17,000 islands, including Sumatra, Java, Sulawesi, and parts of Borneo and New Guine ...

. Though F-111Cs could have made a round-trip to Indonesia's capital,

Jakarta Jakarta (; , bew, Jakarte), officially the Special Capital Region of Jakarta ( id, Daerah Khusus Ibukota Jakarta) is the capital and largest city of Indonesia. Lying on the northwest coast of Java, the world's most populous island, Jakarta ...

, from

RAAF Base Darwin RAAF Base Darwin is a Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF) military air base located in the city of Darwin, in the Northern Territory, Australia. The base shares its runway with Darwin International Airport, for civil aviation purposes. The herit ...

, the route they took would have been very much limited by range. Learmonth's relative proximity added flexibility to the routes in and out, enhancing the likelihood of a successful strike. The major work was undertaken by No. 5 Airfield Construction Squadron between 1971 and 1973.

References

External links

RAAF Base Learmonth
a
airforce.gov.au

at RAAF Museum * {{DEFAULTSORT:Learmonth Royal Australian Air Force bases Airports in Western Australia Shire of Exmouth Military installations in Western Australia Military installations established in the 1950s 1950s establishments in Australia Commonwealth Heritage List places in Western Australia

History

See also

References

External links