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Airfields Index
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Silloth aerodrome, Cumbria was opened in June 1939 as a Maintenance Command station, storing new aircraft. The station as was soon transferred to Coastal Command with the 22 Maintenance Unit remaining as a station within the aerodrome.
In April 1940, The Coastal Command group pool was re-designated No:1 Operational Training Unit. Being replaced by No:6 O.T.U in March 1943.
It was at Silloth that the "Silloth Trainer" was developed. Consisting of a Hudson fuselage with electrics and pneumatics fitted to simulate instrument readings, engine sound, and movement for "realistic" training. The device was one of the predecessors of the modern flight simulator.
After hostilities ceased, the aerodrome, was handed back to No:22 Maintenance Unit and the site was used largely for scrapping and storage.
The aifield was used breifly for civil flights in the late 1950s and was closed in 1960. Today the remaining buildings are used for industrial units and a sunday market takes advantage of the hard standing.
My father George East was posted to Silloth very early in the war. He said that one of his duties was to move round dummy aircraft in order to fool any enemy recce flights. My mother and I were living in a converted railway carriage at Allonby over the road from the beach. One morning when we were walking along the beach we were buzzed by very small sea plane flying so low that father had to throw us to the ground. I was only three years old but I can still remember it. He didn’t recognize the type and supposed it was an enemy. Father died in 1991, aged 80. He finished his service at Waddington with the rank of sergeant.
Some time ago my Daughter sent me a photograph of something she had found behind a barn in the Lake District. She was told that it was a machine for starting second world war fighters and it had come from RAF Silloth. It is understood that the present Farmer's father was a pilot during the war and flew from Silloth. After the war when he took up farming he thought that the Houchin would make a useful power unit on the farm and bought it at a sale at the airfield. The unit was placed in its present position and they were never able to get it to work.
I wonder how much of the story is true.
I've been researching the crash of a Wellington near here on the Mull of Kintyre. The aircraft number was LB137, it crashed on 2.12.43 and along with Rex Canavan was Charles Cliften Cooper ,Jeffrey Duddridge ,Harry Oxley Dransfield ,Francis Sutter, Robert John Wardrope. All were killed and Canavan,Sutter,Cooper and Wardrobe are buried in Campbeltown. Dransfield buried in Sheffield. Dransfield buried in Somerset. Thanks Duncan Mc Arthur
My memories of Silloth were of the airfield being constructed in 1938. The bus service from Wigton passed the airfield. Later when it opened we could see the spitfires and hurricanes tucked away in small dispersal fields or stored in the corrugated mini hangers which were disguised as farm building often painted with windows. From time to time the traffic would be held up whilst a fighter was manhandled down the main road out of one of the fields.
The airmen used to come into Wigton to the dances at the Market Hall they had to walk back to Silloth although I remember watching an airman who had had a few lemonades with his bicycle on his shoulder and a girl on his arm walking towards Silloth in the middle of the road. Many of the Air Transport Auxilliary were based in Wigton they used to ferry aircraft from America but they seemed to leave about 1943/4. Finally I remember seeing brand new Liberators beeing broken up for scrap in 1946, we crawled through the grass to climb inside.
Rob Clayton
Photographs
If you have any Photographs you would like to share please get in touch.
List of those who served here.
- P/O Edward Alexander van de Bogaert. dutch 1 OTU Sqd (d. 11/01/1943 )
- Rex Canavan (d. 02/12/43.)
- Charles Cliften Cooper (d. 02/12/43.)
- Cpl Bernard Corporaal dutch 1 OTU Sqd (d. 11/01/1943 )
- Harry Oxley Dransfield (d. 02/12/43.)
- Jeffrey Duddridge (d. 02/12/43.)
- Amos George East. Read his Story
- LAC Kenneth Hobson. HE fitter Read his story
- Lac Antonius Franciscus Post dutch 1 OTU Sqd (d. 11/01/1943 )
- Robbie Robinson (Instructor pilot, Wellington)
- P/O Frederik Schut dutch 1 OTU Sqd (d. 11/01/1943 )
- Francis Sutter (d. 02/12/43.)
- Robert John Wardrope.(d. 02/12/43.)
If you have any names to add to this list, or any recollections or photos of those listed, please get in touch.
If you have a story which you would like to share, or a website dedicated to an airfield or aircrew, please get in touch.
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