RAF Madley

Royal Air Force Madley, or more simply RAF Madley, was a Royal Air Force station situated 6.2 miles (10 km) south west of Hereford in Herefordshire, England.[1] The station was in use during the Second World War as a training base and was located between the villages of Kingstone and Madley.

RAF Madley
Madley Communications Centre earth satellite tracking station
Summary
Airport typeMilitary
OperatorRoyal Air Force
LocationMadley
Elevation AMSL265 ft / 81 m
Coordinates52°01′55″N 002°50′56″W
Map
RAF Madley
Location in Herefordshire
Runways
Direction Length Surface
ft m
00/00 3,300 1,005 Concrete and Tarmac
00/00 3,300 1,005 Concrete and Tarmac
00/00 4,200 1,280 Concrete and Tarmac

History

The site opened as a training centre for aircrew and ground wireless operators on 27 August 1941.[2] In 1941, No. 4 Signals School RAF was stated up at the base. The school was disbanded and renamed as No. 4 Radio School RAF in January 1943.[3]

In 1943, the grass airfield was reinforced with Sommerfeld Tracking and the centre's population rose to about 5,000.[4] Also in 1943, RAF Madley became a base for one of ten Royal Air Force Mountain Rescue Teams (MRT) that had been set up to rescue lost aircrew.[5] The site was visited in 1944 prior to D-Day by US General George S. Patton, and later by Rudolf Hess (who had been held prisoner near Abergavenny) on his way to the Nuremberg Trials in 1946.[6]

The station was not bombed by the Luftwaffe, however, as with other bases, crashes of friendly aircraft were commonplace. On Christmas Day 1944, a Liberator crashed in the station environs which precipitated the usual search for the crew.[2] This had proved fruitless as the crew had baled out over Belgium as they assumed the heavily flak-damaged aircraft was about to crash. However, the aircraft somehow made it all the way to Madley without its aircrew.[7]

The comedian and actor Eric Sykes was a radio operator at RAF Madley during the Second World War.[8]

Units posted here
  • No. 4 Radio School (January 1943 - December 1946)
  • No. 4 Signals School (August 1941 - January 1943)
  • No. 8 Anti-Aircraft Co-operation Unit RAF (July 1941 – 1943)
  • No. 25 Maintenance Unit (April 1952 - March 1954)
  • No. 26 Squadron RAF detachment during 1942 using the North American Mustang I
  • No. 50 Gliding School RAF(January 1946– January 1947)[9]

Current use

Today only a few hangars remain, and Madley Communications Centre now occupies part of the site.[10] Other parts of the site have been converted into a wildlife wetlands centre that is used for study.[11] The B4532 and an unclassified road now cut what was the airfield area in two.[2][1]

See also

References
  1. "189" (Map). Hereford & Ross-on-Wye. 1:25,000. Explorer. Ordnance Survey. 2015. ISBN 978-0-319-24382-4.
  2. McLelland 2012, p. 151.
  3. Lake, Alan (1999). Flying units of the RAF : the ancestry, formation and disbandment of all flying units from 1912. Shrewsbury: Airlife. p. 186. ISBN 1-84037-086-6.
  4. "History of RAF Madley". www.mesc.org.uk. Retrieved 11 February 2017.
  5. Card, Frank (2001). "Squadron Leader G D Graham DSO MBE". Journal of the Royal Air Force Historical Society (24): 50. ISSN 1361-4231.
  6. Historic England. "Madely[sic] Airfield (1402537)". PastScape. Retrieved 12 February 2017.
  7. Smith, David J. (1981). Military airfields of Wales and the North-West (1 ed.). Cambridge: P. Stephens. p. 121. ISBN 0-85059-485-5.
  8. "The vision of gliders high above brings back so many memories". Evesham Journal. 1 October 2009. Retrieved 11 February 2017.
  9. "Madley - Airfields of Britain Conservation Trust UK". www.abct.org.uk. Retrieved 11 February 2017.
  10. "RAF Madley (No 4 Radio School), airfield, Madley". Historic Herefordshire Online. Retrieved 11 February 2017.
  11. "About us". www.mesc.org.uk. Retrieved 11 February 2017.

Bibliography
  • McLelland, Tim (2012). Action stations revisited volume 5. Manchester, UK: Crecy. ISBN 978-0-85979-111-3.CS1 maint: ref=harv (link)
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