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RAF St Eval was built for RAF Coastal Command. The requirement for a station to provide anti-submarine and anti-shipping patrols off the South-west coast of England. . Designed as an expansion scheme airfield, according to Paul Francis "Works & Bricks", it was quite a late build, 1938/1939 and in the expansion scheme layout of the time. With a grass airfield, (runways added probably as it was being built). Hangars, behind them the technical and then the communal. Behind again and often just outside the perimeter, the married quarters for Men, Warrant Officers and Officers. It was opened on the 02nd October 1939.
RAF St Eval crest.
Started with Spitfires.
Ended with Shackleton.
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RAF St Eval
234Sqdn 1940
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In the Battle of Britain St Eval became a fighter airfield and also a sector HQ. Spitfires, Hurricanes and Blenheim's were all flown from here.
An RAF Sector HQ in action.
RAF Middle Wallops sector HQ with WAAF's using the map table.
10 Group RAF.
RAF St Eval
1940
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Between July and October 1940 there were at least ten attacks on the airfield. Here a 'C' hangar is very badly damaged.
Originally 'C' hangars were designed to have re enforced concrete walls, the glass windows should if a direct hit. Would blast out and the walls saved from the pressure. But by 1939, the design had changed to austerity build and the concrete was replaced by cement asbestos sheets. That is why you can see the walls blown out here. The roof was tiled with standard asbestos/cement roof tiles and they must have flown all over the place.
'C' type gabled original design on another airfield.
'C' type austerity with cement asbestos sheeting RAF Middle Wallop.
150ft wide x 300ft long x between 30ft & 35ft high.
RAF St Eval
Nov.1941 1944
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The first picture is November 1941 and the second September 3rd 1944.
You can see a massive expansion in the three years between the two pictures.
St Eval started as an expansion period aerodrome with the usual for the period of 'C' type hangars and infrastructure behind. When war started and continued to grow, more hangars. runways, dispersals were added.
With :
4 x 'C' hangars.
1 x Bellman hangar.
2 x T2 hangars.
1 x Blister hangar.
48 x Spectacle aircraft hard stands.
18 x Circular aircraft hard stands.
RAF & WAAF would have been at its height, over 2000 personnel.
The grass airfield was probably on the original plan, but was soon replaced by three concrete and tarmac runways of 1900x50yds and later the main runway extended to 2700x50yds.
Officers, Sergeants and Airman's mess's, Armoury, Workshops, Main Store all in permanent brick (expansion period) and married quarters. But I believe the accommodation was all in temporary Nissen style 24ft hutting. There are very few if any pictures of this area surviving.
'C' type austerity hangar.
Bellman hangar.
T2 hangar with a Liberator inside.
Over Blister hangar.
Married quarters.
Crew.
RAF St Eval
11 July 1944
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Another 1944 photo of the control tower and two of the hangars.
ST Eval - ZE.
RAF St Eval
1946 athistory
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The control tower I believe is made of wood and covered in felt and tarred. The rear tower certainly looks 1930's fort style. The main control tower style is based by the looks of it to 518/40.
518/40control tower.
RAF Ibsley tower.
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15424/41 - Gymnasium with Chancel Extension
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RAF St Eval
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15424/41 - Gymnasium with Chancel Extension.
Plan of the chancel extension. The men's faith was covered well here with the CofE in the first part and the RC in the second.
Chaplin's branch of the RAF.
RAF St Eval
30 October 2005
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15424/41 -Gymnasium with Chancel Extension.
With the officers and Men's changing rooms on the side. With toilets in between. Keeping fit was very important to the RAF and also the men's faith. The large pink door is not original the wall would have been filled in.
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Entrance to the bomb store.
RAF St Eval
Google 1944
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Bomb Store - P.M. - 3064/36 type building.
The roadway was designed so a bomb tractor and trailers can negotiate without stopping. It can drive in through the entrance and run around the site picking up bombs/depth charges from stores, take them to a fuzing point and out to awaiting aircraft.
Google earth showing what is left of the store today.
Steel frames to carry bombs from the store, to the trailers.
Hand winching the bombs.
A WAAF, a Fordson and a bomb train.
RAF St Eval
30 October 2005
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Bomb Store - P.M. - 3064/36 type building.
These could be Bomb Store 305/36, they would have been inside earth ramparts to deflect an expansion. The stores are back to back, fully independent and would have had steels to carry the bombs out of the stores and onto trailers. The initial design of these stores was for small bombs carried by twin engined bombers of the Blenheim or Hampden type.
Inside a store with the bombs stacked up.
Plan.
details
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30 October 2005 72065A.C.
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Bomb Store - P.M. - 3064/36 type building.
Three bay bomb store.
A three bay bomb store used by American airmen to load 500lb bombs onto a bomb train.
Fuzing point.
Fuzing point, early type.
Bomb bay.
RAF St Eval
30 October 2005
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Bomb Store - P.M. - 3064/36 type building.
A squadron of attack helicopters landing at RAF St Morgan.
Depth Charges.
Bomb train.
RAF St Eval
30 October 2005
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Bomb Store - P.M. - 3064/36.
A squadron of attack helicopters landing at RAF St Morgan.
RAF St Eval
30 October 2005
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A squadron of attack helicopters landing at RAF St Morgan.
Apache.
RAF St Eval
Google 2011
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This could be Squash Court - T.B. - 16589/40 (detail from the RAF Middle Wallop plan).
Its a Squash Court with changing rooms and a viewing balcony above....
Plan.
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Google 2021
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The view today.
RAF St Eval
Unknown
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Squash Court - T.B. - 16589/40 possibly.
Note the changing rooms below and the viewing platform above, which in the later builds this was discontinued.
589/40 with just the changing rooms. RAF Davidstow Moor.
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Operations out into the Atlantic Ocean.
Another problem most airfields suffered from is fog. So FIDO was set up here to aid landings in foggy conditions.
Fog on their home airfields was such a hazard to RAF aircraft returning from bombing operations that in 1942 the Prime Minister, Winston Churchill, ordered the Petroleum Warfare Department to develop a way of dispersing it. The result was FIDO – Fog, Intensive, Dispersal, Of – a network of pipes and petrol burners capable of clearing fog from runways. Petrol was pumped under pressure through pipes around the runways and special jets were set on fire. The heat from the flames, dispersed the fog.
There were 15 airfield throughout Britain that had FIDO and very effective it was and also used an awful lot of fuel.
Fido.
Fido.
RAF St Eval
08 July 2008
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Some of the first aircraft sent out from St Eval to tackle the U-Boat threat were these Whitley's. Gradually being superseded by better and bigger bombers, these old planes filled the gap between no anti-submarine planes to the Wellington and then Liberators that came on stream.
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Hudson.
Wellington.
Warwick.
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IWM --502sq
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WAAF cooks at RAF St Eval preparing rations for Whitley aircraft crews of No. 502 Squadron RAF Coastal Command. Note box of oranges, an imported rarity.
On 28 November 1938, No. 502 (Ulster) Squadron became part of RAF Coastal Command, and was re-equipped with Avro Anson's in January 1939. When war broke out, the squadron was used to fly patrols in the Atlantic off the Irish Coast. From October 1940, the Squadron flew with Armstrong Whitworth Whitley's. It was reported that on 30 November 1941 the squadron became the first Coastal Command unit to make a successful attack on a U-boat with air-to-surface radar, sinking U-Boat U-206 in the Bay of Biscay. This report has been countered with newer information that the U-206 was more probably sunk by the minefield, "Beech," laid there by the British after August 1940, and that the squadron's attack was actually on U-71, which escaped without loss.
In January 1942 the squadron officially moved to both Norfolk (RAF Docking) and Cornwall, where a maintenance station was set up at RAF St Eval. Until 1944 the squadron's main role was to carry anti-submarine patrols.
22 February 1942-2 March 1943: St. Eval
No. 502 Squadron RAF Coastal Command
RAF St Eval
1944
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Armourers unload 250-lb Mark VIII depth charges from bomb-trolleys beside a Consolidated Liberator GR Mark VA of No. 53 Squadron RAF at St Eval, Cornwall.
July 1944 just at the height of St Eva's busy period. The run up to D-Day the submarine threat was diminishing, but the Allies new when the landings go in. Every German ship in the western approaches would come out and try and sink as many Allied landing craft and ships as possible. The flights out into the Atlantic did spot a few submarines and ships, but these were instantly attacked. And the threat diminished.
RAF & USAAF Liberators flew from here. This one is being bombed up with depth charges. If a submarine was sighted, the pilot would call over the intercom to all the crew, instantly open the bomb doors, select which and how many depth charges he was going to drop, position the plane for attack and then attack. The front gunner would engage the submarine to stop any Flak coming up. The other gunners would keep an eye out for any long range German fighters. Then the depth charges dropped and zoom away from any Flak and to get clear of the explosions.
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Liberators
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Leigh Light.
Flying at night and if a submarine was sighted on the surface (some times picked up on Air-to-Surfacer-Vessel radar (ASR). The light was switched on and this would illuminate the sub. Allowing the pilots and crew to see their target. Obviously far harder to do than this. It was very successful and many submarines were found and sunk. My father sailed from Scotland to Algiers in a convoy after Operation Torch November 1942. The convoys before and after were attacked but his was not. He said how comforting it was to see and hear aircraft circling the convoys day and night. The Leigh Light was invented by Wing Commander Humphrey de Verd Leigh. An RAF personnel officer, devised a solution after chatting with returning aircrew. This was to mount a searchlight under the aircraft, pointed forward and allowing the submarine to be spotted as soon as the light was turned on. He then developed the Leigh Light on his own, in secret and without official sanction—even the Air Ministry were unaware of its development until shown the completed prototype. The Leigh Light was fitted to many different aircraft in Coastal Command.
Convoys.
RAF St Eval
08 July 2008
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St Eval, St Uvelas.
The RAF church for Cornwall. "Set in a strange wasteland where there was once a hamlet". The chancel was extended by six foot in 1322. Many Cornish churches had their chancels extended at this time, but this is one of few documented examples. St Eval was then part of the Bishop’s Peculiar Deanery of Pawton. From its own website.
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08 July 2008
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St Eval, St Uvelas.
The RAF memorial 20 years of RAF service. Then after the airfield be came redundant, it was used as an HF radio aerial farm , with many very tall aerials arrays laid out around the perimeter.
Distinctive shape of the grass cutting around the aerials.
RAF St Eval
08 July 2008
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St Eval, St Uvelas.
RAF St Eval
08 July 2008
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St Eval, St Uvelas.
The RAF window.
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St Eval, St Uvelas.
RAF St Eval
08 July 2008
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St Eval, St Uvelas.
The RAF adopted the church as their place of worship, also as we saw earlier. The gymnasium could be used for the same purpose.
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08 July 2008
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