RAF Charmy Down Airfield

A collection of my photos taken at Charmy Down the former nightfighter station near Bath,July 2008.This airfield opened in 1940 & was home to Hurricanes and Defiants in defence of Bristol & Bath. In 1943 A Spitfire OTU took up residence but it was gone by the end of the same year. 1943 saw the arrival of the USAAF who stayed nearly until the end of WW2. This prestigious airfield is now in a state of disrepair & is slowly eroding away. The song is: Visions In Blue by Ultravox.

Category:

Entertainment

Tags:

• RAF
• Airfields
• Aircraft
• Control
• Tower
• WW2
• Ultravox
• Visions
• in
• blue
• Bath
• Bristol
• Nightfighters
• Defiant
• Hurricane
• USAAF.

[Hanglands]

Good photo-tour mate.

01:32 - is that not a switch gear hut?

01:40 - Not seen that before, any ideas as to what it is?

[sgtgrech]

Thanks mate.

01:32 could be a switch gear hut, I'm not 100% sure as it was on private property & I couldn't get any closer.

01:40 is a 24 man sleeping shelter at the rear of one of the fighter pens.

[Hanglands]

Thanks SgtGrech. Just one more question... the buildings photographed from the inside at 01:43... This reminds me of two buildings at Kings Cliffe, except the ones at there had large metal ducts on the ceiling running down the length of the room. Been there two or three times, but nobody knows what they are, cant even ID them from the airfield plan. Curious to know what the photos are in the vid here at 01:43. Many thanks. Keep up the good work.

[sgtgrech]

The buildings photographed from inside are the 24 man & 32 man sleeping shelters. I am not sure if they are found on Bomber airfields or only on Fighter stations as they seem to be an integral part of the fighter pens.

[neddlykins]

and also `Black widow` aircraft..top secret at the time.

[sgtgrech]

Black Widows were never stationed at Charmy Down. Three USAAF night fighter Sqns were transferred in to await these aircraft but they never arrived so they were transferred back out again. There was a USAAF combat repair depot there though. I think it repaired mainly allison engined aircraft (P40's & P38's).

[evy0579]

Excellent pictures. Sad about the disrespectful decay. Didn't really like the background music. But good job putting it all together.

[mrrmancunian]

It's sad to see places like this decay into dust gradually.

I really need to set about visiting airfields like this.

Do you know of any more?

Is it possible you can tell me the locations too please?

Thanks, good video.

[Indie5018]

The Pillboxes at the beginning are you aware that there should be a bunker complex linking all the pillboxes. Have you come across it yet? as you don't say.

[moviedout]

paintball...

[mrrmancunian]

Thanks a lot, I'll take a look and see if I can buy it online.

[traceynorthernstar]

Great video, but the music was weird and actually quite annoying. I Don't think it went well with the video at all. But great photography x

[traceynorthernstar]

You can find a list of all of the RAF Airfields on Wikipeadia and under each one, it say's whether it is still in use or disused. A good idea would be to buy a copy of each of the 'Military Airfields of Britain' series by Ken Delve, as they have details of all of them, what they were used forand when, a map of their location and what sort of state they were when the book was published. There are different books for different regions of the UK. Hope this helps x

[Hanglands]

Ah, yes, sorry, I should have realised. Probably not the same buildings then. The rear of the fighter pens at K.Cliffe have air radi shelters and red brick walls with gun loops encompasing the pen. The mystery buildings I had in mind were over near the control tower. I just read Charmy Down had Turbinlite Havocs/Bostons.. Ive had the great pleasure of meeting Tom Clark (William Terrence Clark of 1451 and 1455 Flt, who was a Radar Op on them. He didnt speak very favourably of the concept! Thanks.