RAF Melksham, Wiltshire

1940 - 1964 Opened on 12 June 1944 as No.12 School of Technical Training. Most of the RAF's modern aircraft would be here used as training aids for young airmen to learn new skills. Nearly every form of aircraft repair was trained here and there was even a cooks school. The training was also shared with the Navy and several ratings did their time here too.

Hawker Hunter WB188 was gate guard for as long as I remember, we would pass it by, every time we visited my grandmother in either Shaw and then Melksham. Its now at Tangmere Military Aviation Museum.

It was the Hunter in which Neville Duke flew to secure his world air speed record of 727 mph in 1953. This unique aircraft was ordered in June 1948 as one of three prototypes and first flown by Hawker’s Chief Test Pilot, Squadron Leader Neville Duke, in July 1951. In early 1953, WB188 was fitted with side-mounted air brakes, extra fuel tanks in the wings and a new reheated version of the Avon engine – at which point she became known as the sole Hunter Mk 3. On 7th September 1953, Neville Duke took off from Tangmere to set up a new world air speed record of 727.63 mph along a course between Bognor and Littlehampton. One month later, WB188 came to the end of its flying life and was transferred to RAF Halton as an instructional airframe. She was employed as the gate guardian at RAF Melksham and Abingdon from 1961 to 1964 and then displayed at a museum at RAF Colerne until 1975 when she moved to the RAF Museum at Cosford. The aircraft has been on loan to Tangmere since September 1992. And splendid she looks. Tangmere Military Aviation Museum.

1 x Equipment Depot Store. 8 x Hinaidi hangars.

Plan of the camp. Left the four Hinaidi hangars and the gymnasium in the centre. Parade square surrounded by barracks. To the right the communal, large canteens, institutes and mess's for sergeants and Officers. Rifle ranges. A full sick quarters (Hospital). In between the huts were air raid shelters (green). My plan has the numbers but not what they refer to. That's missing.

Plan of the wartime dispersed areas. As the war progressed, more barracks were needed and this site was created. The communal, for institute and airmen's canteen. Living sites, barracks. A grenade range, a new one for me with the RAF. I have seen army grenade ranges before.

Commemorating Stone.

The area that the camp took up.

Hinaidi hangar 1136/27. These hangars were based on Admiralty F shed, side opening hangars. Re designed to end opening hangars. Their main use was to be built on airfields abroad. Some examples would have been in Iraq and Egypt. It then was found they could also be used on Technical Training Establishments here at Melksham, Hereford & RAF Chivenor in Devon had four.

Hinaidi hangars.

Hinaidi hangars. Inside one of the hangars that was then being used for storage of car tyres. The hangars were used as technical training on aircraft repair and would have had from full aircraft to individual parts.

Lancaster Road.

Tool hut? Crittall window frames.

Tree lined road. Trees were added to RAF stations to soften them and maybe a bit of camouflage. The RAF had, pre war, a nursery where trees were grown for airfields and camps. RAF Little Rissington has nearly all the old RAF buildings removed and new housing built. But the trees were listed and had to be preserved.

Hinaidi hangars.

Hinaidi hangars.

Equipment Depot Store, used here as a training facility The Christie Miller Sports Centre was constructed of brick with a corrugated iron roof. It has a rectangular footprint and consists of a central building orientated west to east, flanked on either side by five single story buildings orientated south to north. The gable end roofs terminate with raised sections with a shallow pitch and clerestory strip windows running its length. The central, two-story building has no clerestory windows. Internally, the building contains a gymnasium, squash courts, bowling green, ten pin bowling lanes, badminton courts, a crèche and a café.

Equipment Depot Store, used here as a training facility Five buildings each side with clerestory roofs. Post war the council used this building as a Gymnasium, but its true job. I am unsure of. At RAF Burtonwood. The Americans used several buildings of this style as aircraft repair shops.

Equipment Depot Store, used here as a training facility The heating plant, originally it would have been a coke/coal fired. But later oil was used.

Equipment Depot Store, used here as a training facility Heavy steel doors on the side.

Equipment Depot Store, used here as a training facility The door knob. A typical WW1 onwards design used throughout the RAF.

Equipment Depot Store, used here as a training facility More heavy steel doors.

Equipment Depot Store, used here as a training facility External store cupboard.

Equipment Depot Store, used here as a training facility

As it is now on Google Earth. All gone.

Hinaidi hangars.

Hinaidi hangars. Now re vamped for a new generation of business use.

One of the wooden huts.

I would like to know who they were. Inside one of the hangars.

Braithwaite high level water tower.

The view from the water tower over the camps N/W corner. Far distance, hangars. Middle, barracks and air raid shelters.

This may be a remaining RAF building??? now a garage.

Initial training at RAF Melksham. Description: 60 personnel arranged in five five ranks, in front of hangar 4 door. Details from the photo.

2331032 AC1 J Revel, Class B, Entry 287. Hut 25, 1 Wing, Melksham. 2 x Practical & Theory. Unknown date.

LILIAN BAILEY (third from the right, third row back) in an Instrument Repairs course at RAF Melksham.