btilley

Published at 00:00, Friday, 02 March 2007

By BRIAN TILLEY

THE Royal Air Force was rightly credited with saving Britain’s bacon in the dark days of 1940.

The British Expeditionary Force had just been contemptuously swept into the sea at Dunkirk by the mighty German war machine.

Hermann Goering’s Luftwaffe was pounding London and it seemed only a matter of time before Britain joined the rest of Europe under Hitler’s jackboot.

But rising from little airfields around the country, like a flock of songbirds harrying a raptor, came clouds of Spitfires and Hurricanes which savaged the German bombers and the escorts, and blunted the German war effort to such a degree the invasion was put on hold.

And although it was airfields like Biggin Hill and Coltishall in Kent which stick in the national conscience, Tynedale too played its own part in inspiring Churchill’s immortal words: “Never in the field of human conflict was so much owed by so many to so few.”

For what is now Albemarle Barracks at Harlow Hill began life as RAF Ouston.

It was built in the early years of World War Two, as a fighter station, and was one of the busiest in the North-East.

The airfield was formally opened on March 10, 1941, and its first operational squadron was the Wilenski squadron of Hurricanes, one of the new Polish fighter units, which arrived at the end of April.

The Poles quickly became bored by the routine work of convoy patrols, and were constantly complaining about the lack of German aircraft to attack in the area.

They didn’t have long to wait, for on May 7, 28 enemy aircraft attacked Tyneside – and Ouston was on the hit list.

The airfield was subjected to a concerted attack by a lone Junkers 88 fighter bomber.

It dropped a dozen bombs, before circling low and machine-gunning the aerodrome.

It was eventually driven off by Lewis gun fire from the watch tower, but it left 16 airmen injured and three damaged aircraft.

Mickley’s Ivan Seymour, who worked on the airfield as a 15-year-old apprentice joiner, witnessed the bombing.

He said: “It was a wily intruder and I watched him from the landing window of Rosedale where I then lived in Mickley.

“This was a vantage point from which I could watch all of the goings on over Ouston.

“Five 500lb bombs were dropped and fortunately the only one that might have done serious damage didn’t explode.

“It skimmed through the archway into the yard at the rear of the NAFFI building and came to a stop before doing any really serious damage.

“Anyone who is aware of the vital role of the NAAFI in wartime will understand the gravity of the consequences if this bomb had exploded!

“As it was there was a serious shortage of ‘tea and wads’ until the bomb had been defused and removed and the mess cleared.”

The Polish pilots’ thirst for action was satisfied on June 2 when two Ouston fliers shot down a Junkers 88 off Tynemouth.

Ouston’s role as a league of nations airfield continued when the Poles were replaced with a Spitfire squadron which, despite being called the County of Kent squadron, was actually staffed almost exclusively by Belgian pilots.

In September 1941 Oston was under attack again, and a bomb left a 20-foot wide crater, six feet deep, in the centre of the airfield.

The bomb fractured a water main and blew out several windows, but there were no casualties among personnel or aircraft.

In the same month a Spitfire crashed while approaching Ouston, killing the Canadian pilot, who is buried in Stamfordham Parish Church cemetery.

Another Canadian pilot was killed in a forced landing in his Hurricane near the WAAF quarters at Ouston, and there was a bad start to 1942 at the base.

A civilian worker clearing snow from the runway was killed by a skidding Spitfire, and another pilot died in a collision between a Spitfire and a Tiger Moth the following day.

The famous night fighter, the Boulton Paul Defiant, came to Ouston in October for a brief stay but made no contact with the enemy.

In 1942 Ouston took on a new role as an air-sea rescue unit, initially using adapted Defiants, which could drop dinghies to stranded airmen, but later with the amphibious Walrus, another biplane from an earlier age, and then the better equipped Avro Anson.

One of the less successful units based at Ouston was 226 Squadron, with the new American built twin-engined Douglas Boston bombers.

Bad weather delayed the arrival of the 12 aircraft, and before the day was out three of them had crashed, with one fatality.

One crashed on approach when one engine cut out, another made a belly landing in a field at Great Whittington when both engines expired, and the third made a spectacular forced landing on the airfield.

Another tragedy occurred at Ouston in June 1943, when two Spitfires collided in mid-air on approaching the airfield, both Belgian pilots being killed instantly.

Further roles for Ouston involved towing drogues for target practice, and then as an air observation post.

It was also one of the pioneer stations in the use of airborne radar and, incredibly, more than 50 Ansons were based there at one stage.

Wellington bombers were also adapted as radar trainers, 29 being based at Ouston, along with nearly two dozen Hurricanes to provide moving targets for the radar trainees.

Four days before the end of the war in Europe, Ouston lost its one and only Hurricane, when the aircraft suffered engine failure, and performed a belly landing at Eshott Farm.

Unusually for the time, the accommodation at RAF Ouston was centrally heated, and had running water, which made it popular with airmen and officers alike.

A large station headquarters, and elaborate, heavily protected control rooms were constructed, indicating a potentially important role for the airfield once opened.

There were also comfortable messes for officers, sergeants and airmen.

The airfield had three runways, the longest 1,400 yards long, and unusually for the period they were built so they almost intersected at one point.

It was a design that was frowned upon, as in the event of an enemy attack a well-aimed stick of bombs could close all three runways at a stroke.

The chance of an enemy attack was so high that Ouston had its own decoy airfield build at Berwick Hill, north of Ponteland.

Even before the tarmac was laid, the RAF was making use of the levelled grass at Ouston.

It was home to light aircraft of the 13 Group Communications Flight, which used a collection of aircraft including civilian planes that had been pressed into service at the outbreak of hostilities.

As well as the trusty military bi-planes like the Gloster Gladiator, there were long forgotten craft such as the Percival Vega Gull, and a Miles Whitney Straight.

Ouston was also used by the Calibration Flight of the No 3 Radio Serving Section, based at Hallington Hall.

The end of the war didn’t mean the end of Ouston.

The airfield entered the jet age with the arrival of the de Havilland Vampires of 607 (County of Durham) Squadron, which necessitated the extension of the main runway.

During the 1950s and 1960s Ouston was used by a variety of small units, and the RAF Gliding School became the last RAF unit to occupy the site before it was taken over by the Army in 1975.

Eerily, although it has not been used as an airfield since 1975, the runways and perimeter track remain intact, and even the control tower is still standing.

Published by http://www.hexhamcourant.co.uk