The History of Royal Air Force Stornoway
Royal Air Force Station Stornoway, a station and aerodrome, was based near the burgh of Stornoway, on the Isle of Lewis, in the Western Isles of Scotland, operating from 1940 to 1945, and subsequently from 1982 to 1998. Its motto was ‘Lead and Guide’.
History
Beginnings
Prior to the modern military facility, the airfield was originally developed during the 1930s; consisting of grass runways on the site of Melbost Golf Links, cited to have been the first grass runways in Britain. Limited civilian flights started May 1940 on the Glasgow to Hebrides by Scottish Airways using a de Havilland Rapides, though with the start of Second World War, the Air Ministry acquired the site.
RAF Stornoway started development by laying four new paved runways in an ‘unusual layout for RAF Coastal Command, this was completed by 1941. It was then home to various Coastal Command squadrons patrolling the North Atlantic for U-boats. In late 1940, a detachment of Avro Anson aircraft arrived from No. 612 (County of Aberdeen) Squadron RAF, Royal Auxiliary Air Force (R Aux F). The Ansons operated from the site of RAF Stornoway whilst it was still under construction. By November 1940, the aircraft from 612 Squadron had been posted to RAF Wick in north-east Scotland, and were gradually replaced by Ansons from No. 48 Squadron RAF, then based at RAF Hooton Park.
In March 1940, 827 Naval Air Squadron of the Fleet Air Arm operated Fairey Albacore aircraft from Stornoway in conjunction with the Ansons of 48 Squadron RAF on maritime patrols across the Atlantic Ocean. This continued until the station was completed, at which point they moved away. RAF Stornoway was officially constituted on 1 April 1941 as part of No. 15 (Reconnaissance) Group RAF, and then No. 18 (Reconnaissance) Group ,from the of RAF Coastal Command, but was finally closed at the end of the Second World War when it was transferred to the Ministry of Civil Aviation on 1 July 1946, reverting to Stornoway Airport. No. 66 Air-Sea Rescue (ASR) Marine Craft Unit was also based at Stornoway Harbour during 1943 and 1944.
Post War
In 1952, biological agents were brought in to the airport for the controversial Operation Cauldron. They were testing the dangerous agents on caged monkeys and guinea pigs who were situated on a navy pontoon nearby at the Braighe The tests were carried out by scientists from the Chemical and Biological Defence Establishment (CBDE) from Porton Down. When a trawler inadvertently passed through one of the clouds of plague bacteria, the ship and crew were temporarily put under covert surveillance during their return from Iceland to Blackpool and onshore.
Cold War
During the height of the Cold War years, Stornoway Airport was home to No. 112 Signals Unit RAF that was established in 1960 as an electronic countermeasures (ECM) measurement and evaluation unit by RAF Bomber Command Headquarters (HQBC), based at RAF High Wycombe. The unit measured the signal strength, frequency bandwidths, and aerial performance of the operational Handley Page Victor and Avro Vulcan V bombers. The combined success of 112 S.U., BCDU at RAF Finningley, and each of the aircraft’s bases, along with the Operations Research Branch at (HQBC) and technical support from RRE Malvern (later to become RSRE Malvern) was demonstrated by the V-force during the Operation Skyshield exercise and readiness through the Cuban Missile Crisis in the early sixties, and subsequent exercises until the time the unit was closed in 1983.
In the early 1980s, part of the airport was upgraded in a £40 million programme consisting of extensions of the main runway and taxiways, along with a new hangar, designed to accept RAF Panavia Tornado aircraft. By 1 April 1982, this work was completed, the buildings commissioned, and RAF Stornoway was established once again in order to become a forward operations base (FOB). After sixteen years in this role, and the end of the Cold War, the RAF station was finally closed on 31 March 1998. The Ministry of Defence sold the site to the Western Isles Council.
Text from Wikipedia