RAF Hunmanby Moor, (also known as RAF Filey), was a Royal Air Force training camp during 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 opposi ...

Hunmanby Hunmanby is a large village and civil parish in the Scarborough district of North Yorkshire, England. It was part of the East Riding of Yorkshire until 1974. It is on the edge of the Yorkshire Wolds, south-west of Filey, south of Scarboro ...

East Riding of Yorkshire The East Riding of Yorkshire, or simply East Riding or East Yorkshire, is a ceremonial county and unitary authority area in the Yorkshire and the Humber region of England. It borders North Yorkshire to the north and west, South Yorkshire to t ...

, England. The site was commandeered at the outbreak of war and returned to civilian use as a holiday camp in 1945. From 1942, many RAF Regiment training courses were run at the site.

History

The Butlins holiday camp at Filey was requisitioned at the outbreak of the

to act as a training camp for recruits. Although located near the village of Hunmanby, it was intended to be known as, and post-war was called, Butlins Filey. On initial commencement of military activity, the site was called RAF Filey. In 1942, it became an RAF Regiment training depot, and during the next three years, until 1945, several RAF Regiment squadrons and training schools were allocated here. The RAF depot at Filey was the first of its type in the RAF, and so instructors from the Brigade of Guards and the Royal Marines were drafted in to help with training. The depot moved soon afterwards to RAF Belton Park in

Lincolnshire Lincolnshire (abbreviated Lincs.) is a Counties of England, county in the East Midlands of England, with a long coastline on the North Sea to the east. It borders Norfolk to the south-east, Cambridgeshire to the south, Rutland to the south-we ...

, although Regiment training continued at Hunmanby Moor. In 1944,

The Times ''The Times'' is a British daily national newspaper based in London. It began in 1785 under the title ''The Daily Universal Register'', adopting its current name on 1 January 1788. ''The Times'' and its sister paper '' The Sunday Times'' (f ...

reported on the 2,000 men from the

West Indies The West Indies is a subregion of North America, surrounded by the North Atlantic Ocean and the Caribbean Sea that includes 13 independent island countries and 18 dependencies and other territories in three major archipelagos: the Greate ...

who had arrived at Hunmanby Moor for their 12 week basic training. A fictionalised account of West Indian recruits at RAF Hunmanby Moor features in

Andrea Levy Andrea Levy (7 March 1956 – 14 February 2019) was an English author best known for the novels '' Small Island'' (2004) and ''The Long Song'' (2010). She was born in London to Jamaican parents, and her work explores topics related to British ...

's book ''"Small Island"''. One of the last units to leave Hunmanby Moor was the RAF Regiment's LAA Gunnery School, which was posted to

Nethertown Nethertown is a small village in Cumbria, England on the Irish Sea coast. The community is covered by the civil parish of "Lowside Quarter", and was created out of one of the old parochial townships of the parish of St Bees. History During W ...

in August 1945. Thereafter, the whole of the site was returned to the Butlins company and civilian use.

Based units

Notable personnel

Michael Beetham Marshal of the Royal Air Force Sir Michael James Beetham, (17 May 1923 – 24 October 2015) was a Second World War bomber pilot and a high-ranking commander in the Royal Air Force from the 1960s to the 1980s. As Chief of the Air Staff during t ...

, spent February 1943 at the base awaiting aircrew training

Notes

References

Sources

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Hunmanby Moor, RAF Military history of the East Riding of Yorkshire Royal Air Force stations in Yorkshire Royal Air Force stations of World War II in the United Kingdom