RAF Cleave

RAF Cleave
RAF Cleave
Kilkhampton, Cornwall in England
	RAF Cleave on a target dossier of the German Luftwaffe, 1940
	RAF Cleave Shown within Cornwall
Coordinates	50°53′08″N04°33′00″W / 50.88556°N 4.55000°W
Type	Royal Air Force station
Site information
Owner	Air Ministry
Operator	Royal Air Force
Controlled by	RAF Fighter Command ; * No. 10 Group RAF
Site history
Built	1938/39
In use	May 1939 – November 1945
Battles/wars	European theatre of World War II
Airfield information
Elevation	122 metres (400 ft) AMSL
Runways
06/24	656 metres (2,152 ft) Grass
18/36	823 metres (2,700 ft) Grass

Last updated May 14, 2024

RAF Cleave^[2] is a former Royal Air Force station located 4.2 miles (7 kilometres ) north of Bude in Cornwall, United Kingdom, which was operational from 1939 until 1945.^[2] Despite a few periods of intense activity, it was one of Fighter Command's lesser used airfields.

History

RAF Cleave was conceived as housing target and target support aircraft for firing ranges along the north Cornwall coast, and land was acquired from Cleave Manor.

In May 1939, two flights of No. 1 Anti-Aircraft Co-operation Unit RAF (1 AACU) with the Westland Wallace, and a naval steam catapult was soon erected near the cliffs for the pilotless Queen Bee aircraft due to be stationed there. Aircraft were initially housed in temporary Bessonneau hangars (type H of World War I vintage), and later replaced by more permanent structures.

In December 1943, the four flights were amalgamated into 639 Squadron, which served at Cleave for the remainder of the war.

The airfield was placed under care and maintenance in April 1945, and later became a government signals station.

Posted squadrons

unit	dates stationed	aircraft used	duties
1 AACU (A, D, G, K, O & V Flights)	– 31 October 1942	Hawker Henley, Westland Wallace	target towing
1602 (AAC) Flt	1 November 1942 – 1 December 1943	Hawker Henley	formed from D Flight 1AACU, target towing
1603 (AAC) Flt	1 November 1942 – 1 December 1943	Hawker Henley, Fairey Battle	formed from G Flight 1AACU, target towing
1604 (AAC) Flt	1 November 1942 – 1 December 1943	Hawker Henley, de Havilland Tiger Moth	formed from O Flight 1AACU, target towing
1618 (AAC) Flt	1 November 1942 – 1 December 1943	de Havilland Tiger Moth, de Havilland Queen Bee	target towing & pilotless targets
639 Sqn	1 December 1943 – 30 April 1945	Hawker Henley, Hawker Hurricane	formed from 1602, 1603, & 1604 Flts^[3]

Current use

Apart from an undisturbed piece of the grass runway to the north, a very short section of concrete perimeter track, and a few of the married quarters accommodation on Cleave Crescent, the site has been almost completely re-modelled as GCHQ Bude.

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References

Citations

1 2 Falconer 2012, p. 66.
1 2 "RAF Cleave". RAFweb.org. RAFweb – Air of Authority. Retrieved 19 October 2017.
↑ Jefford 1988, p. 101.

Bibliography

Falconer, J. (2012). RAF Airfields of World War 2. UK: Ian Allan Publishing. ISBN 978-1-85780-349-5.
Jefford, C G (1988). RAF Squadrons. A comprehensive record of the movement and equipment of all RAF squadrons and their antecedents since 1912. Shrewsbury: Airlife. ISBN 1-85310-053-6.
Lake, A (1999) Flying units of the RAF, Airlife Publishing, Shrewsbury, 316pp & 16 App, ISBN 1-84037-086-6.
Smith, G (2000) Devon and Cornwall Airfields in the Second World War, Countryside Books, Newbury, 288pp, ISBN 1-85306-632-X.
Willis, S and Holliss, B R (1987), Military airfields in the British Isles 1939-1945 (Omnibus Edition), Enthusiasts Publications, Newport Pagnell, 283pp, ISBN 0-907700-12-8.

External links

RAF Cleave – web page with extensive descriptive photo gallery, at AtlantikWall.co.uk
web page showing many photos of the remaining RAF Cleave implacements around the Morwenstow site – at DerelictPlaces.co.uk

This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.

[FOOTNOTEFalconer201266-1] 1 2 Falconer 2012, p. 66.

[RAFweb-2] 1 2 "RAF Cleave". RAFweb.org. RAFweb – Air of Authority. Retrieved 19 October 2017.

[FOOTNOTEJefford1988101-3] Jefford 1988, p. 101.

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