RAF Abingdon, Oxfordshire

RAF · Oxfordshire · England · United Kingdom

RAF Abingdon

RAF Abingdon, Oxford is now like a lot of ex-RAF stations, an Army camp, Dalton Barracks.
Opened September 1932 as a bomber airfield and in October the first planes started to arrive with Fairey Gorden's. 1934 and Hawker Harts arrived. 1936 another hangar was added, a 'C type'.
It took until 1938 for monoplanes to arrive with Fairey Battles and wasn't until 1938 that a real bomber arrived. That was the Armstrong Whitworth Whitley. A twin engined monoplane, really the start of things to come. With power operated gun turrets front and back.. In 1943 10 Operational Conversion Unit (OCT) had 55 Whitley, 11 Anson's, three Lysanders and one Defiant. Up until March 1944 the Whitley had been using the grass runways. Then all planes de camped to RAF Stanton Harcourt and two runways were laid out. By March 1945 Wellingtons were now being used by 10 OCU. By December 1946 and all change, 10 OCU left and RAF Transport Command took over control of the airfield. They brought in Dakotas of 525Sqn.
1947 and the Berlin airlift, Avro Yorks arrived and took a major part in the operation.

RAF Abingdon

1 x Watch Office pos. 5845/39.
1 x Control Tower 2548c/55.
4 X 'A' type sheds (hangars).
1 x 'C type' shed (hangar).
1 x 'F' hangar a post war type.
7 x Spectacle dispersals.
24 x Frying pan dispersals.

RAF Abingdon

WW2 dispersed aircraft parking on the north side This can be seen from the minor road. .

25 April 2010

Vickers Wellington parked on a dispersal.

RAF Abingdon

WW2 dispersed aircraft parking. There seemed to be quite a few huts around here. This is a possibly a Turner corrugated asbestos hut.

25 April 2010

RAF Abingdon

WW2 dispersed aircraft parking. Small 16ft Nissen hut.

25 April 2010

RAF Abingdon

WW2 dispersed aircraft parking. I think this is a post war hut, made of a steel frame and sheeted in corrugated cement asbestos.

25 April 2010

RAF Abingdon

Perimeter/connecting track on the western side. We walked the western side only.

25 April 2010

RAF Abingdon

Control tower type 2548c/55 (1955). At the far end was the 1955 control tower. This type had a VCR on the top and that gave it a 360° view.

25 April 2010

RAF Abingdon

Control tower type 2548c/55 (1955)

25 April 2010

RAF Abingdon

Control tower type 2548c/55 (1955)

25 April 2010

RAF Abingdon

M&E plinth, post war type.

25 April 2010

RAF Abingdon

A red building sat out on the airfield. Use unknown.

25 April 2010

RAF Abingdon

The next building we found, another post war type.

25 April 2010

It was placed in its own earth berm to protect it or the area around it?

google

RAF Abingdon

The next building we found, another post war type.

25 April 2010

RAF Abingdon

The next building we found, another post war type. Inside and it looks as though it had a lot of communications type of equipment.

25 April 2010

RAF Abingdon

The next building we found, another post war type.

25 April 2010

RAF Abingdon

Main Gate. We did not get even close to the main camp on this visit, just the far side of the airfield.

no.1 pts heritage

RAF Abingdon

This picture was taken before 1936, as the 'C type' shed had not been erected. It shows the very clean lines of an RAF station built in the Pre-war expansion period. With the rise of Nazism in Germany, the RAF needed to expand to compete. Several schemes were devised where airfield construction, training camps, storage units and also a lot of new aircraft.

date 1936

RAF Abingdon

Early picture of the Officers Mess.

The Mess, Dalton Barracks
Dalton Barracks is the base of three regiments of the Royal Logistic Corps.
It was originally a Royal Air Force base, opened in 1932 and known as RAF Abingdon. The station was closed in December 1992. It was taken over by the Army and renamed Dalton Barracks in honour of James Langley Dalton (a member of the Army Commissary Corps who was awarded the Victoria Cross for his gallantry at Rorke’s Drift, Zululand, 1879).
Medium: Watercolour
Printed image size(s): B2 only (58 x 38 cm)
Owner: Officers Mess, Dalton Barracks
Price(s): £70

RAF Abingdon

Flight line, the main hangar site.
4 x 'A type' sheds.
1 x 'C type' shed.
1 x triple 'F type' hangar.

25 April 2010

RAF Abingdon

The view of two of the four 'A type' sheds of the original airfield layout. Opened in 1932 with four 'A type' sheds (not hangars, they were still being called sheds by the RAF). were built in a crescent shape looking over the grass airfield. Behind was the technical area and behind that, the communal and married quarters.

25 April 2010

'A type' shed, 246ft by 122ft, with four full span opening doors and ridge and valley roof. Steel framed and brick walls, with windows high along the walls.

date 1972

RAF Abingdon

A modern storage unit built for the army, with an A shed on the left. The large red brick tower on the right and the camps water tower and heating plant. Heated by coke or coal, this plant would heat most of the camp through underground heating piping.

25 April 2010