Halpenny - Bomber aircrew in World War II : true stories of frontline air combat

The earliest military aerodromes in the United Kingdom were little more than areas of rough grassland, mainly in the vicinity of the Army garrisons at Aldershot and on Salisbury Plain. Tents provided accommodation for the men and wood-framed canvas shelters were erected although they appear to have been almost as flimsy as the aeroplanes that they were intended to protect. By the time World War I started in 1914 several aerodromes had received aeroplane sheds of wooden construction, rather like oversized garden sheds, plus some hutted accommodation.

The war caused an enormous expansion in the aviation services and many new aerodromes had to be opened to train pilots and observers for the new squadrons. Initially these were little different in layout from the pre-war aerodromes but soon a fairly standardised training aerodrome evolved. A completely new type of hangar was designed, the Aeroplane Shed RFC 1915 pattern, made mainly of wood with a curved roof and six large sliding doors at each end and a couple of years later this was superseded by an improved design, the Aeroplane Shed, General Service, 1917 RFC pattern. Similar in outline, this had brick walls with external buttresses and curved roof supported by elaborate wooden Belfast trusses which provided the GS Shed with its popular name the Belfast Hangar.

Hampden bombers at Waddington in 1939 just before the outbreak of World War II.

Wartime triangular pattern of a bomber airfield with three intersecting runways. The main one was usually 2,000 yds in length with the two subsidiaries being 1,400 yds each.

Most of the training aerodromes had seven hangars of either the 1915 or 1917 pattern, six in three pairs as the squadron hangars and the seventh as the aeroplane repair shed for all units. At the edge of the aerodrome, which was often undulating to assist with drainage, were these hangars, rows of huts used as workshops, barracks, etc. They were usually adjacent to a road and were sometimes provided with a siding from a convenient railway line.

Concrete pill-boxes, housing machine-guns and crews, were erected at RAF bomber stations as part of the airfield defences.

Soon after the end of the war the armed forces began to contract to their peacetime establishment and most of the aerodromes were abandoned. A few were retained and these were the bomber airfields of the 1920s with a very gradual programme of building replacement starting towards the end of the decade.

In 1924 a new type of hangar was designed for the Royal Air Force and eventually over 30 were built on airfields in various parts of England. This was the type A hangar and was steel framed with brick walls, the vertical girders being outside the walls, and the multi-gabled roof was covered with toughened asbestos sheets. Other aerodrome buildings were designed around this time, particularly barrack blocks and messes, grim looking red brick buildings but nevertheless providing far better facilities than the worn out old temporary huts that they replaced. Early in the 1930s a modest expansion programme was approved for the Royal Air Force and one or two new bomber aerodromes were constructed. One of these was Mildenhall and here the first buildings to be completed were in accordance with these drawings dating back to the previous decade, including a pair of A hangars.

On the left, the familiar water tower that dominates this group of buildings. The round-roofed Nissen huts are living huts, the other huts are the ablutions. These are at Skipton-on-Swale and photographed August 1945, and were the general layout for living quarters.

The well planned-roads and pathways characterise the permanent station. The permanent two-storey buildings were used for billets and administration. Photograph taken at RCAF Station Leeming in August 1945.