Royal Air Force Llandwrog or, more simply, RAF Llandwrog 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 located at

Llandwrog Llandwrog (; Welsh language: meaning 'The church of Saint Twrog') is a village and community in Gwynedd, north-west Wales, most notable for the presence of the headquarters of Welsh record label Sain and the site of Caernarfon Airport. It has ...

, southwest of

Caernarfon Caernarfon (; ) is a royal town, community and port in Gwynedd, Wales, with a population of 9,852 (with Caeathro). It lies along the A487 road, on the eastern shore of the Menai Strait, opposite the Isle of Anglesey. The city of Bangor is ...

Gwynedd Gwynedd (; ) is a county and preserved county (latter with differing boundaries; includes the Isle of Anglesey) in the north-west of Wales. It shares borders with Powys, Conwy County Borough, Denbighshire, Anglesey over the Menai Strait, and C ...

, Wales. The site opened in January 1941 as a

RAF Bomber Command RAF Bomber Command controlled the Royal Air Force's bomber forces from 1936 to 1968. Along with the United States Army Air Forces, it played the central role in the strategic bombing of Germany in World War II. From 1942 onward, the British bo ...

airfield for training gunners, radio operators and navigators and closed after the end of 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 ...

in 1945. It reopened in 1969 and remains in civil operation today as

Caernarfon Airport Caernarfon Airport ( cy, Maes Awyr Caernarfon) , formerly RAF Llandwrog, is located southwest of Caernarfon, Gwynedd, Wales. Operations Caernarfon Aerodrome has a CAA Ordinary Licence (Number P866) that allows flights for the public transport o ...

History

No. 9 Air Gunnery School was the first tenant of the base when it opened at the end of January 1941. It was equipped with

Armstrong Whitworth Whitley The Armstrong Whitworth A.W.38 Whitley was a British medium bomber aircraft of the 1930s. It was one of three twin-engined, front line medium bomber types that were in service with the Royal Air Force (RAF) at the outbreak of the Second World ...

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 and

Avro Anson The Avro Anson is a British twin-engined, multi-role aircraft built by the aircraft manufacturer Avro. Large numbers of the type served in a variety of roles for the Royal Air Force (RAF), Fleet Air Arm (FAA), Royal Canadian Air Force (RCAF) a ...

training aircraft A trainer is a class of aircraft designed specifically to facilitate flight training of pilots and aircrews. The use of a dedicated trainer aircraft with additional safety features—such as tandem flight controls, forgiving flight characteristi ...

. Two days after flying commenced, the airfield was attacked by a single

Junkers Ju 88 The Junkers Ju 88 is a German World War II ''Luftwaffe'' twin-engined multirole combat aircraft. Junkers Aircraft and Motor Works (JFM) designed the plane in the mid-1930s as a so-called ''Schnellbomber'' ("fast bomber") that would be too fast ...

bomber that

strafed Strafing is the military practice of attacking ground targets from low-flying aircraft using aircraft-mounted automatic weapons. Less commonly, the term is used by extension to describe high-speed firing runs by any land or naval craft such ...

the airfield, damaging one Whitley.

Airspeed Oxford The Airspeed AS.10 Oxford is a twin-engine monoplane aircraft developed and manufactured by Airspeed. It saw widespread use for training British Commonwealth aircrews in navigation, radio-operating, bombing and gunnery roles throughout the Seco ...

trainers from No. 11 Service Flying Training School were deployed to Llandwrog in mid-1941 to complete its students' night flying requirements. The following year, three of its Whitleys were deployed to

RAF Driffield Royal Air Force Driffield or RAF Driffield is a former Royal Air Force station in the East Riding of Yorkshire, in England. It lies about south-west of Driffield and north-west of Beverley. It is now operated by the Defence Infrastructure Orga ...

to participate in the first "Thousand Bomber" raid on Cologne, Germany on the night of 30/31 May 1942, although one aircraft failed to return. Several weeks later the Air Gunnery School was disbanded and the field became a satellite of No. 9 (Observers) Advanced Flying Unit at

RAF Penrhos RAF Penrhos is a former Royal Air Force airfield located near Penrhos, Gwynedd and west of Porthmadog, Gwynedd, Wales, in the community of Llanbedrog. It was operational from 1 February 1937 to 21 October 1946 for armament training, air o ...

. The unit conducted its night-flying training at Llandwrog and later moved its headquarters there. It was disbanded on 14 June 1945 and flying activities ended. No. 2 Air Crew Holding Unit then became the tenant. The airfield was reactivated for private aircraft in 1969 in preparation for the Investiture of the Prince of Wales at nearby

Caernarfon Castle Caernarfon Castle ( cy, Castell Caernarfon ) – often anglicised as Carnarvon Castle or Caernarvon Castle – is a medieval fortress in Caernarfon, Gwynedd, north-west Wales cared for by Cadw, the Welsh Government's historic environ ...

and it was occasionally used from then on. Eventually, this became frequent enough that the airfield became Caernarfon Airport. The

runway According to the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO), a runway is a "defined rectangular area on a land aerodrome prepared for the landing and takeoff of aircraft". Runways may be a man-made surface (often asphalt concrete, as ...

s and

taxiway A taxiway is a path for aircraft at an airport connecting runways with aprons, hangars, terminals and other facilities. They mostly have a hard surface such as asphalt or concrete, although smaller general aviation airports sometimes use gravel ...

s are still intact, although the original

hangar A hangar is a building or structure designed to hold aircraft or spacecraft. Hangars are built of metal, wood, or concrete. The word ''hangar'' comes from Middle French ''hanghart'' ("enclosure near a house"), of Germanic origin, from Frankish ...

s have been demolished.

Units

The following additional units were here at some point: * No. 31 Maintenance Unit RAF * No. 277 Maintenance Unit RAF

Mountain Rescue

Early in 1942, prompted by an increasing number of aircraft accidents in the North Wales mountains, the ''RAF Llandwrog Mountain Rescue Section'' was formed on a local, volunteer basis. The initiative came from the medical officer at the base,

Flight Lieutenant Flight lieutenant is a junior commissioned rank in air forces that use the Royal Air Force (RAF) system of ranks, especially in Commonwealth countries. It has a NATO rank code of OF-2. Flight lieutenant is abbreviated as Flt Lt in the India ...

G. R. Graham. The team at Llandwrog, and other similar teams elsewhere, were officially recognised towards the end of 1943. The

Royal Air Force Mountain Rescue Service The Royal Air Force Mountain Rescue Service (RAFMRS) provides the UK military's only all-weather search and rescue asset for the United Kingdom. Royal Air Force mountain rescue teams (MRTs) were first organised during World War II to rescue aircr ...

started operations in May 1943, but due to the administrative lag of wartime, it was not officially promulgated until January 1944.

Chemical weapons storage

Almost 71,000 bombs containing the nerve agent Tabun had been seized in Germany at the end of the war, and these were stored in the open at RAF Llandwrog, until 1954 when, in

Operation Sandcastle Operation Sandcastle was a United Kingdom non-combat military operation conducted between 1955–1956. Its purpose was to dispose of chemical weapons by dumping them in the sea. Background The British possessed almost 71,000 air-dropped bombs o ...

, they were transported to

Cairnryan Cairnryan ( sco, The Cairn;
gd, Machair an Sgithich) is a vi ...

for disposal aboard

scuttled Scuttling is the deliberate sinking of a ship. Scuttling may be performed to dispose of an abandoned, old, or captured vessel; to prevent the vessel from becoming a navigation hazard; as an act of self-destruction to prevent the ship from being ...

ships at sea, 120 miles (190 km) north-west of Ireland.

Current use

The main site is now

. Other parts of the site have been repurposed as workshops and small businesses, whilst many buildings remain largely untouched since the end of the war.

Citations

Bibliography

* * {{DEFAULTSORT:Llandwrog Royal Air Force stations in Wales Llandwrog