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RAF Driffield Opened in 1936, RAF Driffield in the East Riding of Yorkshire became a famous wartime airfield. During the later part of the Second World War, Handley Page Halifax bomber aircraft of No.466 Squadron (Royal Australian Air Force) took off from Driffield’s 6,000ft runway to attack the heart of Nazi occupied Europe. After the war the aerodrome became home to a number of training schools and night-fighter squadrons, until flying ceased in 1959. RAF Driffield finally closed in 1977 and was handed over to the Royal Corps of Transport, who renamed the site Alamein Barracks.
Driffield Aerodrome History Website This website is dedicated to saving RAF Driffield from being demolished and redeveloped. It also explores the current state of Britain's aviation heritage, which due to complacency, bureaucracy and severe oversight (not to mention a misguided media and ill-informed public) is in danger of being lost forever. Phillip Rhodes |
Throughout the countryside, sighted from motorway and
country lane, the concrete legacy of Britain’s aviation heritage crumbles
into obscurity. Unlike the army barracks or navy dockyards that are
both prized and protected for their splendid Victorian architecture, year
by year, an ever increasing number of wartime airfields disappear under
new industrial estates or return to agriculture. Of the 740
airfields in operation during the Second World War, very few remain
intact, yet are as important to this country’s national heritage and
cultural identity as the aircraft that once flew from them.
Sadly,
like many disused airfields, Driffield lost its control tower, and by the
early 1980s saw all three runways removed and the hangars converted to
store grain. In 1992, the camp changed hands again and was renamed
RAF Staxton Wold – Driffield Site, until finally closing on June
28th 1996. The actual airfield is now used by the Army Training
Estate (ATE) as a "Dry Training Area", while the hangars, once owned by the
Rural Payments Agency finally closed during the summer of 2003 and have now been sold to a property development company. In late 2006 the Ministry of Defence announced the camp itself was surplus to requirements and was subsequently sold to Strawsons Property in 2007.