Royal Air Force Culmhead or more simply RAF Culmhead is a former
Royal Air Force
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 ...
station, situated at
Churchstanton
Churchstanton is a village and civil parish in Somerset, England, situated within the Blackdown Hills Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty, on the River Otter south of Taunton in the Somerset West and Taunton district.
The parish has a populati ...
on the
Blackdown Hills
The Blackdown Hills are a range of hills along the Somerset-Devon border in south-western England, which were designated an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty (AONB) in 1991.
The plateau is dominated by hard chert bands of Upper Greensand wit ...
in
Somerset
( en, All The People of Somerset)
, locator_map =
, coordinates =
, region = South West England
, established_date = Ancient
, established_by =
, preceded_by =
, origin =
, lord_lieutenant_office =Lord Lieutenant of Somerset
, lord_ ...
,
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 ...
.
It had three tarmac runways that are now in poor condition and the control towers are currently derelict. There is now an industrial estate – derived from the later Composite Signals Organisation Station (CSOS) – right in the middle of the place where the three runways meet.
History
Second World War
![RAF Culmhead - 25 Jun 1942 Airphoto](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/93/RAF_Culmhead_-_25_Jun_1942_Airphoto.jpg)
RAF Culmhead was a typical three-runway fighter airfield, with
blast pen
A revetment, in military aviation, is a parking area for one or more aircraft that is surrounded by blast walls on three sides. These walls are as much about protecting neighbouring aircraft as it is to protect the aircraft within the revetment ...
s built around the site along with ten
blister hangar
A blister hangar is a novel arched, portable aircraft hangar designed by notable British airport architect Graham R Dawbarn patented by Miskins and Sons in 1939. Originally made of wooden ribs clad with profiled steel sheets, steel lattice ribs a ...
s.
It was used by fighters from
RAF Exeter
Exeter () is a city in Devon, South West England. It is situated on the River Exe, approximately northeast of Plymouth and southwest of Bristol.
In Roman Britain, Exeter was established as the base of Legio II Augusta under the personal comm ...
from June but officially opened on 1 August 1941.
Ground defence was provided by the
Somerset Light Infantry
The Somerset Light Infantry (Prince Albert's) was a light infantry regiment of the British Army, which served under various titles from 1685 to 1959. In 1959, the regiment was amalgamated with the Duke of Cornwall's Light Infantry to form the Some ...
.
Who used the airfield first and why is a mystery, the story is told by David Berryman:
"''The first aircraft to land at the new airfield did so when it was unfinished, arriving early one morning. Its pilot approached Mr Long, a roller driver, who was just getting up steam, but neither could understand one another, and when the pilot sprinted back to his aircraft and took off. Long realised that it was probably a German bomber that had landed in error''". (Berryman 2009, 98)
The airfield was occupied by
No. 2 Polish Wing of the
Polish Air Force
The Polish Air Force ( pl, Siły Powietrzne, , Air Forces) is the aerial warfare branch of the Polish Armed Forces. Until July 2004 it was officially known as ''Wojska Lotnicze i Obrony Powietrznej'' (). In 2014 it consisted of roughly 16,425 mil ...
.
The first squadrons to arrive were
No. 316 (Warsaw) and
No. 302 (Poznań) equipped with
Hawker Hurricane Mk.Is. No. 302 soon left to be replaced with
No. 306 (Torun) who operated
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 ...
s. In the summer of 1942 the polish squadrons were replaced by
No. 313 and
No. 312 Squadrons which were
Czechoslovak-manned.
The site was also used for the testing of
barrage balloon
A barrage balloon is a large uncrewed tethered balloon used to defend ground targets against aircraft attack, by raising aloft steel cables which pose a severe collision risk to aircraft, making the attacker's approach more difficult. Early barra ...
wire cutters in 1942 by 02 Detachment of the
Royal Aircraft Establishment
The Royal Aircraft Establishment (RAE) was a British research establishment, known by several different names during its history, that eventually came under the aegis of the Ministry of Defence (United Kingdom), UK Ministry of Defence (MoD), bef ...
from
Farnborough.
In 1943 the Czech units were replaced with
No. 66 and
No. 504 (City of Nottingham) Squadrons.
RAF Culmhead was initially known as RAF Church Stanton, but it was renamed on 22 December 1943 to avoid confusion with
RAF Church Fenton
Royal Air Force Church Fenton or RAF Church Fenton was a former Royal Air Force (RAF) station located south east of Tadcaster, North Yorkshire, England and north west of Selby, North Yorkshire, near the village of Church Fenton. The station wa ...
. It was then used by
No. 165 and
No. 131 (County of Kent) Squadrons. In 1944 the
Royal Navy
The Royal Navy (RN) is the United Kingdom's naval warfare force. Although warships were used by English and Scottish kings from the early medieval period, the first major maritime engagements were fought in the Hundred Years' War against F ...
's 24th Naval Fighter Wing took over with
894
__NOTOC__
Year 894 ( DCCCXCIV) was a common year starting on Tuesday (link will display the full calendar) of the Julian calendar.
Events
By place Byzantine Empire
* Byzantine–Bulgarian War: Stylianos Zaoutzes, leading minister and ...
and
887 Naval Air Squadron
887 Naval Air Squadron (887 NAS) was a Naval Air Squadron of the Royal Navy's 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 a ...
s using Culmhead as a location for their
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 ...
s, which were a naval version of the
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 ...
specially adapted for operation from
aircraft carrier
An aircraft carrier is a warship that serves as a seagoing airbase, equipped with a full-length flight deck and facilities for carrying, arming, deploying, and recovering aircraft. Typically, it is the capital ship of a fleet, as it allows a ...
s.
After
D-Day
The Normandy landings were the landing operations and associated airborne operations on Tuesday, 6 June 1944 of the Allied invasion of Normandy in Operation Overlord during World War II. Codenamed Operation Neptune and often referred to as D ...
in 1944, the airfield was used for training on
Gloster Meteor
The Gloster Meteor was the first British jet fighter and the Allies of World War II, Allies' only jet aircraft to engage in combat operations during the Second World War. The Meteor's development was heavily reliant on its ground-breaking turb ...
s, the first jet engined aircraft in RAF service.
No. 616 Squadron RAF tested them Culmhead before deploying them for their first operational sortie on 27 July from
RAF Manston
Royal Air Force Manston or more simply RAF Manston is a former Royal Air Force station located in the north-east of Kent, at on the Isle of Thanet from 1916 until 1996. The site was split between a commercial airport Kent International Airpor ...
when it intercepted
V-1 V1, V01 or V-1 can refer to version one (for anything) (e.g., see version control)
V1, V01 or V-1 may also refer to:
In aircraft
* V-1 flying bomb, a World War II German weapon
* V1 speed, the maximum speed at which an aircraft pilot may abort ...
flying bomb
A flying bomb is a manned or unmanned aerial vehicle or aircraft carrying a large explosive warhead, a precursor to contemporary cruise missiles. In contrast to a bomber aircraft, which is intended to release bombs and then return to its base for ...
s launched against southern England.
In the autumn of 1944 the surviving squadrons were transferred to other sites and the station wound down, becoming a glider training school and maintenance unit until RAF Culmhead closed in August 1946.
The following units were also here at some point:
Postwar use
![Churchstanton, on Culmhead airfield - geograph](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/61/Churchstanton%2C_on_Culmhead_airfield_-_geograph.org.uk_-_280591.jpg)
From the 1950s, the site was partially reused as Composite Signals Organisation Station (CSOS) Culmhead, performing signals research functions, operated under the aegis of
Government Communications Headquarters
Government Communications Headquarters, commonly known as GCHQ, is an intelligence and security organisation responsible for providing signals intelligence (SIGINT) and information assurance (IA) to the government and armed forces of the Un ...
(GCHQ), with a cluster of buildings covering some 4.4 hectares being constructed approximately in the centre of the former airfield. It was closed in this role in 1999.
Several of the
control tower
Air traffic control (ATC) is a service provided by ground-based air traffic controllers who direct aircraft on the ground and through a given section of controlled airspace, and can provide advisory services to aircraft in non-controlled airsp ...
s and fighter pens have been designated as
Scheduled Ancient Monument
In the United Kingdom, a scheduled monument is a nationally important archaeological site or historic building, given protection against unauthorised change.
The various pieces of legislation that legally protect heritage assets from damage and d ...
s and are included in the
Heritage at Risk Register
An annual ''Heritage at Risk Register'' is published by Historic England. The survey is used by national and local government, a wide range of individuals and heritage groups to establish the extent of risk and to help assess priorities for actio ...
produced by
English Heritage
English Heritage (officially the English Heritage Trust) is a charity that manages over 400 historic monuments, buildings and places. These include prehistoric sites, medieval castles, Roman forts and country houses.
The charity states that i ...
.
References
Citations
Bibliography
*
*
*
External links
{{commons category, RAF Culmhead
* South West Airfields Heritage Trust
RAF Culmhead
Culmhead
Scheduled monuments in Taunton Dene
Structures on the Heritage at Risk register in Somerset
GCHQ buildings and structures
1941 establishments in England