Leconfield
*LECONFIELD: Military aerodrome later, briefly civil regional airport
Note: This picture (2018) was obtained from Google Earth ©
Military users: WW2: RAF Bomber Command 4 Group
97(B) Sqdn (Armstrong Whitworth Whitleys)
51, 58 & 485 (RNZAF - Royal New Zealand Air Force) & 640 Sqdns (Handley Page Halifaxs)
466 Sqdn (RAAF - Royal Australian Air Force) (Vickers Wellingtons, later Handley Page Halifaxs)
RAF Fighter Command 12 Group
234 Sqdn (Vickers-Supermarine Spitfires)
Note: It appears that before the Spifires arrived 234 Squadron were flying Bristol Blenheims and possibly (?) Fairey Battles
*Battle of Britain RAF Station (10th July 1940) 12 Group
249 Sqdn (Hawker Hurricanes)
(1st August 1940) 616 Sqdn flying Spitfires had arrived from CHURCH FENTON and 249 Sqdn with their Hurricanes had replaced 616 Sqdn at CHURCH FENTON.
Notes: Why? Can anybody explain the reason for doing this at the height of the ‘Battle of Britain’? Neither CHURCH FENTON or LECONFIELD were involved in the 'Battle of Britain' so obviously the need to rest these squadrons was not required, so, why move them?
(1st September 1940) All change again; 64 Sqdn were now here with their Spitfires from KENLY (SURREY) and 616 Sqdn were ‘off the scene’ moving to KENLY in August and 302 Sqdn were flying Hurricanes.
(Others claim that 616 Sqdn arrived with Spitfire Mk.1s from DONCASTER in October 1939)
OTHER SQUADRONS BASED HERE IN WW2
302 & 303 (Polish) Sqdns (Hawker Hurricanes)
64, 72 & 81 Sqdns (Vickers-Supermarine Spitfires)
Post 1945:
Central Gunnery School (Avro Lincolns)
A JIM ELEY GALLERY
Note: These pictures have been kindly provided by Jim Eley, who was flying Avro Lancasters with 514 Squadron aged 21 in 1945. He was then selected to become a fighter pilot, training on Harvards and Spitfires before flying Vampires at NORTH LUFFENHAM.
'V' Bomber dispersal airfield
92 Sqdn (Gloster Meteors, North American Sabres, Hawker Hunters and lastly English Electric Lightnings).
Note: A squadron whose history is worth looking up
19 Sqdn [1957 to 1962] (Hawker Hunters), later [1962 to 1965] (English-Electric Lightnings)
1957: 275 (Air-Sea Rescue) Sqdn (Avro Ansons, Bristol Sycamores & Westland Whirlwinds)
1980s: 22 Sqdn (Westland Wessex)
1998 snapshot: RAF Search and Rescue
E Flight 202 Sqdn (2 x Westland Sea King HAR 3)
2003: Army but also RAF 202 (ASR) Squadron. Air-Sea Rescue helicopter base
British airline users: Post 1945: Air Anglia, Autair, Humber Airways
Manufacturing: Blackburn Aircraft. A somewhat tenuous link here in as much as the first flight of the Blackburn N.11/40 Firebrand DD804 took place here on the 27th February 1942, BROUGH then being unserviceable
Location: E of A164, E to SE of Leconfield & SW of Arram villages, 2.5nm N of Beverley
Period of operation: Military: 1936 to ? Civil: 1950s only?
Runways: WW2: 01/19 1829x46 hard 05/23 1280x46 hard
14/32 1280x46 hard
1960s: 18/36 2200x46 hard
NOTES, THE WW2 ERA
On the first night of WW2 (3rd to 4th 09.39) ten Whitley III bombers took off from here to conduct the first of many propaganda leaflet raids over Germany. I find this exercise highly laudable even if simplistic thinking? To imagine, (as we have seen in the UK in recent years for example), that the opinion of large sectors any population can have any real effect on the pre-determined agenda of any government is now proved to be almost laughable.
I am without much doubt being over simplistic, but, this does sometimes appear to make the distinction between a democracy and a dictatorship quite hard to distinguish? As seen when our Prime Minister Tony Blair over-ruled all objections to declare 'his' countries support to the USA for what most people even then claimed was an illegal war against Iraq in 2003.
SOMETHING TO REMEMBER
I haven’t picked on LECONFIELD for any particular reason to make the following observations, it really could have been any Bomber Command Station at this point. This site being selected by the trusted blindfolded ‘pin-the-tail’ on the donkey method.
In his book Wings Patrick Bishop has this to say: “In Churchill’s famous speech of 20 August 1940 there is a passage that no one now remembers. While praising the fighter pilots, he also emphasized that ‘we must never forget that all the time, night after night, month after month, our bomber squadrons travel far into Germany, find their targets in the darkness by the highest navigational skill, aim the attacks often under the heaviest fire, often with serious loss, with deliberate careful discrimination, and inflict shattering blows upon the whole of the technical and war-making structure of the Nazi power.”
This was Churchill at his best. Full of bullshit, bluster and a consummate liar. Even later the arch distorter of the facts, our Prime Minister Tony Blair, never reached the levels of sheer artifice ‘our’ Winston provided, year after year. It can be very convincingly argued of course that this was exactly what the British people needed. And they lapped it up.
GETTING AT THE TRUTH
“Almost every assertion in this statement was untrue.” Patrick Bishop explains. “The RAF’s navigational ability was embryonic and targets were located as much by luck as judgement. The aiming of bombs was rudimentary and the damage inflicted trifling. Only the parts of the Prime Minister’s speech referring to the regularity of operations and the losses suffered were correct.” For the first two years of WW2 Bomber Command achieved nothing of any worth, and, considering what came later, this really does need to be remembered.
“For most of its short life, bombing had been the RAF’s raison d’etre. When the campaign was finally launched at the start of the Battle of France it was a severe disappointment.” This is being very kind. The whole affair was utterly ineffectual and the very brave aircrews sacrificed achieved absolutely nothing. The awarding of a couple of VCs being camouflage at best. “Culpability lay not with crews but with the aircraft they flew and the navigational devices, bomb sights and bombs available to them.” I would take issue with this, as, given another thousand or two more aircraft, such as the Luftwaffe had, the result may well have been different. I would argue, for example, that the Fairey Battle was no more futile than the Junkers Ju-87 Stuka in the war, as it very soon changed. “The senior officers who had talked up bombing as a war-winning device must also take some of the blame.”
Perhaps so. But, this must be viewed given the expectations of that time. To a large extent the impact of bombing was still being evaluated from a WW1 perspective, at least by the RAF top brass. The concept that the Germans had invented, the Blitzkreig, the combination of overwhelming massed ground forces preceeded by a huge aerial bombardment without any defence encountered worth talking about, was an entirely unknown entity. The ridiculous French ‘Maginot’ Line proved this – the Germans simply drove round it. The Germans had devised a completely new approach to war.
THE POST WW2 PERIOD
It seems worth quoting Robert Kackson in his excellent book Britain’s Greatest Aircraft.
“In 1959 RAF Fighter Command was eagerly anticipating the operational debut of the English Electric Lightning F.1. The initial order for this aircraft had been placed in November 1956 and a major airfield development programme had been initiated to accommodate the new type. The Lightning should have been in squadron service in mid-1959, but had been subjected to various delays and uncertainties which had set back the programme by about a year.
All this meant the Hunter F.6 had to continue as the RAF’s first line of defence, together with the all-weather Gloster Javelin, for a good deal longer than had been anticipated. Moreover, in the wake of the Defence White Paper of 1957, which had cast doubt on the future of manned aircraft for the RAF and which had led to the abandonment of some airfields which were being prepared for the introduction of the Lighning, it was now certain that some of the Hunter squadrons would not be re-equipped, and would therefore be disbanded.
At the end of 1959 the futures of only three Hunter-equipped squadrons in the United Kingdom seemed secure; these were Nos 1, 43 and 54 Squadrons, which were scheduled to rearm with the Hunter FGA.9 and assume a ground attack role.”
A LACK OF FORESIGHT
Today of course we can only marvel at the lack of foresight by certain people in highly influential positions thinking that the days of the manned military aircraft were numbered. Or of course, were more sinister forces at work?
However, to get back to Mr Jackson: “The last two Hunter F.6 air defence squadrons in the UK were Nos 19 and 92 at Leconfield in Yorkshire. No. 19 Squadron received its first Lightning F.2s in December 1962, and No.92 also began to rearm with the Lightning in the following April. Later, in 1965, these two squadrons took their Lightnings to Germany to form the RAF’s air defence element of the 2nd Allied Tactical Air Force.”
A CONCEPT AHEAD OF ITS TIME?
The setting up of a scheduled service from here, (and BROUGH), to LEAVESDEN as an alternative destination to HEATHROW by Humber Airways using Brittan-Norman Islanders in the early 1970s was surely inspired thinking. But, as so often though, yet another enterprise way too far ahead of it’s time?
However, Mike Charlton kindly informed me in June 2020 that Autair used LECONFIELD from the 21st April until the 31st October 1969. The reason that a 600ft chimney was being built near BROUGH. Apparently two flights were being made to LONDON AIRPORT (now HEATHROW). Operations then switched to YEADON, (LEEDS/BRADFORD).
David Cairns
This comment was written on: 2017-01-21 00:15:54You make no mention of 466 Sqdn RAAF that flew Wellington and Halifax aircraft from Leconfield between 1942 and 1944.My father was a Flt Lt pilot during this time.
Reply from Dick Flute:
Dear David, Many thanks for this additional information. Much appreciated, regards, Dick
Jim Eley
This comment was written on: 2017-08-05 13:03:39I flew Lincolns at the Central Gunnery School at Leconfield in 1954 / 55 Contact me if interested. Ex- F/L Jim Eley
Reply from Dick Flute:
Hi Jim, Many thanks. I will indeed be interested in anything you can kindly add. Best regards, Dick
Geoff Spink
This comment was written on: 2020-04-13 18:58:25I lived in Hull during WW2 and was at Hornsea with my family c1946 when an aeroplane towing a target went out over the North Sea followed soon after by a flight of either Hurricanes or Spitfires. I would be about 6 years old at the time. I always presumed that the aircraft came from Leconfield as it was the nearest aerodrome to Hornsea. Could I be right or was it just Avro Lincolns (or other bombers) that practised gunnery from there.
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