Qualla: RAF Leconfield

RAF Leconfield: Introduction

Fri, 29 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit not stated. Assumed RAF personnel., CC BY-SA 3.0. On the night of 3 September 1939, the first night of the Second World War, ten Armstrong Whitworth Whitley bombers from this airfield outside Beverley became the first British aircraft to penetrate German airspace. They were not carrying bombs. They were carrying leaflets. The crews flew through the dark over the Reich and pushed bundles of paper out of the bomb bays, an act somewhere between symbolism and propaganda, and came home. The airfield they returned to had opened less than three years earlier, on 3 December 1936, as part of RAF Bomber Command. Over the next four decades RAF Leconfield would host Spitfires during the Battle of Britain, Halifaxes in the strategic bombing offensive, two Polish squadrons that came here to rest and re-form, the Blue Diamonds aerobatic team, and finally the Lightnings of the Cold War interceptor force. It closed as an airfield in 1977 and as a flying station in 2015.

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Image: not stated. Assumed RAF personnel. | CC BY-SA 3.0

RAF Leconfield: Opening, then immediately at war

Fri, 29 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit David Locke, CC BY 2.0. Leconfield's first aircraft were Handley Page Heyford biplane bombers of No. 166 Squadron, which moved in during January 1937. By June 1939 the squadron had converted to the new Whitley monoplane. In October 1939, a month after the leaflet raids, the station was transferred from ...

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Image: David Locke | CC BY 2.0

RAF Leconfield: The Polish pilots

Fri, 29 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit nieznany; color: old photos in color, Public domain. Two of the most distinguished Polish squadrons of the war had Leconfield in their service records. No. 302 Squadron, the Poznanski squadron, was formed at the airfield. No. 303 Squadron, the Kosciuszko squadron, came here to rest and re-equip after its furious turn in the defence...

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Image: nieznany; color: old photos in color | Public domain

RAF Leconfield: Cold War and the Lightnings

Fri, 29 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit MortimerCat, CC BY-SA 3.0. After the war Leconfield was a nominated dispersal base for the RAF's V-bomber force during the early Cold War. Bristol Sycamore helicopters of No. 275 Squadron arrived in 1957, replaced by Westland Whirlwinds in 1959. On 29 June 1959, No. 19 Squadron arrived with Hawker Hunter F...

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Image: MortimerCat | CC BY-SA 3.0

RAF Leconfield: Search and rescue, then driving school

Fri, 29 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Tom Corser, CC BY-SA 2.0 uk. After 1977 the airfield kept flying in another guise. RAF Search and Rescue ran Westland Wessex and later Sea King helicopters from Leconfield, scrambling to ditched aircraft and cliff incidents along the Yorkshire coast for decades. A private company took over services in the ea...

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Image: Tom Corser | CC BY-SA 2.0 uk