RAF Driffield Airfield Guide

The first airfield built in Driffield took three years to construct between 1916 and 1919, this was known as RAF Eastburn and was sited just north of the A163 Driffield to Market Weighton road. This consisted of seven hangars and 240 acres of land, and was mainly used as a single-seat fighter training unit, but the airfield’s completion largely coincided with the end of World War l and so the three squadrons using it (No 21, No. 3 and No. 27) disbanded in January 1920, after which the site wasn’t used.

Plans to build the current site were hatched in 1935 and the new airfield opened in July 1936 as part of the RAF’s expansion programme in readiness for World War ll. The site was originally a bomber station within the No.3 squadron and eventually consisted of five brick-built hangars, administrative buildings, officers’ and other ranks’ messes and living quarters, which were completed in 1937.

The first aircraft to use the airfield were Vickers Virginias flown by No. 58 and No. 215 squadrons who trained day and night, and from 1937 until the end of the war, No. 4 squadron also occupied the site. The first operational flight was in September 1939 when three Whitleys were flown by No. 102 squadron. In December of the same year, a first bombing attack took place, when three bombs were dropped on a sea plane alighting area in Sylt, a domestic airport in Germany.

Other bombing raids took place on oil refineries in Germany and airfields in Norway, while aircraft from RAF Driffield also dropped propaganda leaflets on flights over Prague, Vienna and Warsaw. The site later became home to Whitleys, Wellingtons and Halifaxes of the No. 466 squadron of the Royal Australian Airforce, and later became a night fighter base and the headquarters of the No. 98 squadron.

RAF Driffield was attacked by enemy aircraft in August 1940 during the Battle of Britain. Four of the five hangars were badly damaged by 169 bombs being dropped, which killed 14 RAF personnel and one civilian. This included the first female RAF officer to be killed during the war. As a result of the bombing raids, the airfield closed in order to be re-built and it re-opened in 1941, now with the intention of housing fighter planes such as Spitfires and Hurricanes of the No. 13 fighter command.

Three new concrete runways were built in 1942 while the site was non-operational and were opened in June 1944. This allowed four-engined heavy bombers to carry larger bomb loads to Germany as RAF Driffield remained on the front line of the war. This required a dummy airport to be built at nearby Skerne to act as a decoy to protect RAF Driffield.

Post-war the site became a training base and pilot school and was visited by the Queen in 1954, but in 1958 it became home to three Thor Nuclear Missiles which were controlled by the US and aimed at Moscow as part of the Cold War. The site was, however, placed under care and maintenance in December 1963 and the married quarters used by RAF Leconfield staff. As an RAF airfield, the site was officially closed in 1977 and at first the British Army used the runways as a driving school, when the site became known as Alamein Barracks. The MOD sold off some of the land in 2007 to be used as industrial workshops, and the site is currently operated by the Defence Infrastructure Organisation – an arm of the MOD –as Driffield Training Area. It appears inevitable that the site will eventually succumb to housing development, although the plans currently approved only cover the old ‘barracks’ area of the site. As it stands, the existing hangars and remaining runway areas will remained untouched and be retained for industrial use, at least for the time being.