Benton
Note: This map only shows the suburb of Benton in Newcastle-upon-Tyne. If anybody can kindly provide a more precise position for this WW1 airfield, this advice will be most welcome.
BENTON: Military Landing Ground
Military user: RFC/RAF (Royal Flying Corps, later Royal Air Force)
36 [Home Defence] Sqdn (Royal Aircraft Factory BE.2c)
Location: Presumably a few miles NNE of Newcastle city centre, near Longbenton?
Period of operation: 1917 to 1919
Site area: 42 acres 530 x 293
A QUERY
In June 2022 I was kindly contacted by Mr Tim Jenkins who provided these two pictures. He asks if it could be the same site?
I have no idea, but, looking at the aerial photograph, which clearly shows a substantial facility, it would seem doubtful that there were two sites close to each other? In September 2023 I was kindly contacted by Mr Bruce Richardson who sent me the local area map. The site is just north west of Little Benton.
Tim tells us that the balloon sheds site in the aerial picture is just at the north-east tip of the current Northumbria University building off Coach Lane, the rest of the site being to the east. Barrage balloons are of course normally associated with WW2, (we've all seen classic black and white photos and newsreel films etc), but in fact unmanned balloons for defensive purposes were used in WW1 - these being spherical - and quite likely - virtually useless in military terms. German airships especially, the only aerial means the Germans had to attack this region, being capable of flying way above these defences.
But of course, we must never underestimate their propaganda value to the public, who mostly had no understanding of the realities of aerial warfare. They may have been, as we now know, providing a false sense of security, but they would I suppose have given many some comfort at the time. It is perhaps astonishing, considering how the public reacted to the Blitz regime in WW2, just some twenty years later, to learn about just how fearful much of the population were to aerial bombing in WW1. And of course, quite rightly fearful. This was a regime, devised by the Germans, for indiscriminate bombing of civilian 'targets'. They had no means, at altitude, to hit specific targets of any military value.
This aerial photo was kindly provided by Mr Bruce Richardson in October 2023.
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