Royal Air Force Peterhead or more simply RAF Peterhead 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 ...

sector station located east of

Longside Longside is a village located in Aberdeenshire, Scotland, consisting of a single main street. It lies seven miles inland from Peterhead and two miles from Mintlaw on the A950. Its population in 2001 was 721. The River Ugie flows through it. I ...

Aberdeenshire Aberdeenshire ( sco, Aiberdeenshire; gd, Siorrachd Obar Dheathain) is one of the 32 Subdivisions of Scotland#council areas of Scotland, council areas of Scotland. It takes its name from the County of Aberdeen which has substantially differe ...

and west of

Peterhead Peterhead (; gd, Ceann Phàdraig, sco, Peterheid ) is a town in Aberdeenshire, Scotland. It is Aberdeenshire's biggest settlement (the city of Aberdeen itself not being a part of the district), with a population of 18,537 at the 2011 Census. ...

, Aberdeenshire,

Scotland Scotland (, ) is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Covering the northern third of the island of Great Britain, mainland Scotland has a border with England to the southeast and is otherwise surrounded by the Atlantic Ocean to the ...

History

The airfield was built in 1941 and disbanded in 1945. During this period there were up to 2,000 RAF personnel based there, including around 250

WAAF WAAF may refer to: * w3af, (short for web application attack and audit framework), an open-source web application security scanner * Women's Auxiliary Air Force, a British military service in World War II ** Waaf, a member of the service * WAAF (AM ...

s. A large number of RAF squadrons from a variety of nations used RAF Peterhead's five accommodation camps. In November 1941 the station was hit by two bombs from a

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, killing one person and injuring three others.

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 ...

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 ...

and

North American Mustang The North American Aviation P-51 Mustang is an American long-range, single-seat fighter and fighter-bomber used during World War II and the Korean War, among other conflicts. The Mustang was designed in April 1940 by a team headed by James H ...

aircraft flew from Longside airfield to provide protection for eastern convoys. During the 1990s, the airfield site was inspected and aerial photographs were taken as part of an assessment for a proposed pipeline running between

St Fergus St Fergus is a village in the Buchan area of Aberdeenshire, Scotland. St Fergus lies from the North Sea coast and north-west of Peterhead. The Parish of St Fergus includes the remains of Inverugie Castle and Ravenscraig Castle. The church in ...

and Peterhead Power Station. These reports and photographs showed that pillboxes and many buildings still survived, although most of the land had by then returned to agricultural use. The control tower had been demolished. In November 2004, further investigation was undertaken. The report compared photographs from 1946, which showed the airfield and all its ancillary buildings, with photographs taken in June 1969. By then the hangars had been removed but many other buildings and pillboxes still survived.

Squadrons

Other units

* Satellite of

No. 2 Flying Instructors School RAF No. 8 Flying Training School (8 FTS) is a former Royal Air Force flying training school that operated between 1936 and 1964. History First formation * 1 Jan 1936 – 25 Mar 1942 8 FTS at RAF Montrose became 8 SFTS on 3 September 1939 and was di ...

(1943) * No. 14 Fighter Command Servicing Unit * No. 1479 (Anti-Aircraft Co-operation) Flight RAF (May 1942 - December 1943) *

No. 1491 (Fighter) Gunnery Flight RAF The numero sign or numero symbol, №, (also represented as Nº, No, No. or no.), is a Typography, typographic abbreviation of the word ''number''(''s'') indicating ordinal number, ordinal numeration, especially in names and titles. For exampl ...

(October 1943) *

No. 2792 Squadron RAF Regiment This is a list of units of the Royal Air Force Regiment. The RAF Regiment is the ground fighting force of the Royal Air Force and is charged mainly with protecting military airfields, among other duties. First formed in 1942 to protect the airfi ...

No. 2803 Squadron RAF Regiment This is a list of units of the Royal Air Force Regiment. The RAF Regiment is the ground fighting force of the Royal Air Force and is charged mainly with protecting military airfields, among other duties. First formed in 1942 to protect the airfi ...

* No. 2848 Squadron RAF Regiment

Current use

The north-eastern section of the airfield has been taken over by

Bond Helicopters Offshore Helicopter Services (OHS) (known as Bond Offshore Helicopters until April 2016) is a British helicopter operator, specialising in providing offshore helicopter transportation services to North Sea and Irish Sea oil and gas platforms. C ...

and Bristows as a refuelling point for helicopters servicing North Sea oil platforms, roughly a 45-minute flight. In 2003, after funds were successfully raised by the local branch of the Longside British Legion, a cairn monument was erected in memory of those who had served at RAF Peterhead, Longside airfield. At the time of the unveiling ceremony of the monument on 14 September 2003, there was a flypast from a

Douglas Dakota The Douglas C-47 Skytrain or Dakota ( RAF, RAAF, RCAF, RNZAF, and SAAF designation) is a military transport aircraft developed from the civilian Douglas DC-3 airliner. It was used extensively by the Allies during World War II and remained in ...

of the

Battle of Britain Memorial Flight The Battle of Britain Memorial Flight (BBMF) is a Royal Air Force flight which provides an aerial display group usually comprising an Avro Lancaster, a Supermarine Spitfire and a Hawker Hurricane. The aircraft are regularly seen at events comme ...

. More recently a stretch of the runway is used for flying radio controlled model aircraft.

References

Citations

Bibliography

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External links

Derelict Places – RAF Peterhead
{{DEFAULTSORT:Peterhead Royal Air Force stations in Scotland Royal Air Force stations of World War II in the United Kingdom

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 ...

Transport in Peterhead Airports established in 1941