RAF Sutton Bridge


Royal Air Force Sutton Bridge or more simply RAF Sutton Bridge is a former Royal Air Force station found next to the village of Sutton Bridge in the south-east of Lincolnshire. The airfield was to the south of the current A17, and east of the River Nene, next to Walpole in Norfolk.

History

On 1 September 1926 the Air Ministry established R.A.F. Practice Camp Sutton Bridge on 289 acres of acquired agricultural land next to Sutton Bridge village from Guy's Hospital Agricultural Estates. It was the responsibility of the first camp commandant, Flight Lieutenant A. Mackenzie, to establish the base camp and its flying ground, to set up, operate and maintain ground and towed targets for practice machine gun firing and bomb dropping by the Royal Air Force and Fleet Air Arm biplane squadrons. Its principal gunnery range was to be located along the coastal marshland on The Wash in close vicinity to the small village of Gedney Drove End. Although an RAF aircraft gunnery practice camp from 1926, from 1 January 1932 it was officially renamed to No. 3 Armament Training Camp Sutton Bridge, subsequently No. 3 Armament Training Station Sutton Bridge, and later simply RAF Sutton Bridge.
In October 1939 No. 266 Squadron RAF reformed at RAF Sutton Bridge as a fighter squadron and from January 1940 operated the Supermarine Spitfire, becoming the RAF's second Spitfire fighter Squadron after RAF Duxford’s No. 19 Squadron RAF.
In March 1940 No. 6 Operational Training Unit was formed and arrived at RAF Sutton Bridge for training fighter pilots, commanded by Squadron Leader Philip Campbell Pinkham, with a complement of Hawker Hurricane, Miles Mentor and North American Harvard aircraft, including one Gloster Gladiator, its first pilot pool came from No. 11 Group RAF transferring to No. 12 Group RAF of RAF Fighter Command. No. 6 OTU RAF was re-numbered in November 1940 to No. 56 OTU RAF and remained at RAF Sutton Bridge until relocating in March 1942 to RAF Tealing.
The single most important function of RAF Sutton Bridge was as the home for the RAF's Central Gunnery School from April 1942 to March 1944. Here for the first time, fighter pilots of RAF Fighter Command and air gunners of RAF Bomber Command were trained together so as to become Gunnery Instructors who would then be sent to airfields around the country to pass on newly acquired skills. In the words of Group Captain Allan Wright "the Central Gunnery School itself was the first of its kind in the world".

Runway

4,200 ft Grass runway, oriented North-East/South-West.
2,400 ft x 50 ft Sommerfeld Tracking runway, numbered 13-31.
3,450 ft x 150 ft PSP Marsden Matting runway, numbered 08/26.

Units present at Sutton Bridge

During the Second World War, airfield ground defence at RAF Sutton Bridge consisted an array of Anti-Aircraft weapons, such as Bofors 40 mm cannons and Lewis or Vickers machine guns, manned by some 66 officers and men of "D" Company 1st Battalion of the Cambridgeshire Regiment, from defences and pillboxes distributed around the airfield station perimeter. Two such pillboxes still stand and can be found along the former airfield perimeter. As most air raid warnings occurred during the hours of darkness, a searchlight battery operated by 10 men of the Royal Engineers was also present.

Decoy "Q" site

Expecting attacks by the German Luftwaffe on RAF airfields, the Air Ministry implemented a plan for secret decoy airfields in 1939. Sites intended to attract night raids were designated "Q" sites, while decoys for day raids were known as "K" sites. RAF Sutton Bridge had a "Q" site, four miles north-east of the airfield, on cultivated farmland in Norfolk, at Terrington Marsh, near the village of Terrington St Clement. The "Q" site consisted of an elaborate lighting system, including adjustable-intensity electric lights, to simulate a runway flare path, and other runway lights. Obstruction lights were also installed, to prevent Allied aircraft from mistakenly landing on the decoy dummy airfield.

Air raid attacks

The German Luftwaffe took its first aerial bombing assault on RAF Sutton Bridge on the night of 30–31 August 1940, where the Terrington decoy "Q" site would prove its effectiveness. On that night, four High Explosive bombs were dropped North-West of the detected "Q" site flare-path, with a further fifteen explosions minutes later. Another air raid, on 22 September 1940, saw a single German bomber drop a further seven bombs on the "Q" site. The Luftwaffe returned in strength on 14 February 1941, twelve bombers unloaded 47 High Explosive bombs and approximately 1,000 incendiary bombs, once again the decoy "Q" site proved its effectiveness, on the next night the Luftwaffe returned.
On 16 February 1941, amidst low cloud and afternoon drizzle, and without warning, a single Heinkel He 111 bomber appeared out of the grey sky, circuited RAF Sutton Bridge airfield, dropped nine bombs and sprayed the area with machine gun fire, before disappearing back into the cloud as quickly as it had appeared. One further air raid followed on the "Q" site when two bombers dropped eight High Explosive bombs shortly after midnight on 17–18 February 1941. No further direct air raid attacks materialized during the Blitz until the early hours of 12 May 1941 when Sutton Bridge was re-visited by the Luftwaffe, as part of a series of countrywide air raids targeting infrastructures and RAF airfields. Between the hours of 1-2 am on 12 May 1941, in addition to attacking the neighbouring town of Spalding, three bombers conducted a separate aerial bombing assault on RAF Sutton Bridge airfield, sixteen bombs fell in total on parked Hawker Hurricanes, setting two on fire and causing severe damage to seven others.

Central Gunnery School

The Central Gunnery School was formed on 6 November 1939 after the RAF recognised the need for both continuing and advanced instruction, initially for air gunners in Bomber Command. Its first base was RAF Warmwell and the CGS ran its first course in April 1940, where the main focus was on turret-gunnery. On 1 April 1942 the CGS moved from RAF Chelveston near Northampton to RAF Sutton Bridge.
During the Battle of Britain, it became apparent that while aircrew had acquired essential flying skills, they had received little or no training in aerial gunnery. This was a serious deficiency for inexperienced pilots, meaning such training and the teaching of deflection shooting had largely to be carried out or just picked up during operations, resulting in fewer combat successes. For this reason, and after repeated approaches to senior officers by Wing Commander Adolph Malan widely known as ‘Sailor’ Malan, he finally received authority to set up a Fighter Wing at the CGS. He was a respected leader and high-scoring fighter pilot, whose Ten Rules For Air Fighting were already on many fighter squadron notice boards.
There was mutual advantage for the Bomber and Fighter wings to be based at the same location so that relevant gunnery flying exercises could be carried out together. Thus, the Central Gunnery School transferred to Sutton Bridge on 1 April 1942, with its new wider remit, and remained until February 1944. It comprised the Gunnery Leader Wing and the Pilot Gunnery Instructors Training Wing. Each training course lasted a month and comprised 10 fighter pilots and 32 air gunners; with a 50% overlap of courses there were always twice that number of airmen at the School.
Thus, its purpose was to give advanced training to experienced aircrew to become gunnery Instructors who were then posted to airfields around the country to use their newly acquired instructing skills. Fighter Command and Bomber Command worked together at the airfield. The two principal aircraft used were the Supermarine Spitfire and the Vickers Wellington respectively, although a large number of aircraft types were based at the airfield.

Pilot Gunnery Instructors Training Wing

Spitfire pilots with operational experience were given a month's training to become gunnery Instructors who would then be posted out to APCs to teach freshly trained pilots deflection shooting.
Some of the training was undertaken using wing-mounted cine-cameras, simulating attacks with machine guns and cannons. In order to learn how to attack bombers and to learn dogfighting skills, the simulated attacks were made on both Wellingtons and on other Spitfires; for some purposes the School's target towing aircraft were sufficient as targets for these attacks. The gunnery film taken during simulated attacks was subsequently evaluated to assess proficiency.
Training using live ammunition was carried out on drogue targets, towed behind a target tug, most commonly Miles Masters or Westland Lysanders. Hawker Henleys were also used briefly at the School - see link for photograph of a drogue. The CGS operated its own Target Towing Flight. The ammunition of various Spitfires was painted in different colours, for example, blue green and red. Three Spitfires made attacks on one drogue, after which the target-towing aircraft dropped the drogue at a dropping zone near the airfield; it would then stream another drogue in readiness for another three pilots to make their attacks. By subsequent examination of the colour of the paint around the holes in the drogue, percentage hit rates of individual pilots could be assessed.
In 1943, the Air Ministry produced a 48-page training book for fighter pilots titled "Bag The Hun". This dealt with the estimation of range and angle off in deflection shooting, with the sub-title "Try This Series Of Exercises & Improve Your Shooting". This formed the basis of the training, and was issued to all instructors and pilots attending fighter gunnery courses.
A typical series of pilot's logbook entries for training flights during a course at the School would include:
"Ranging and line of flight on Spitfire;

Range estimation on Wimpey;

¼ attack on Wimpey;

Deflection practice on Spit 200mph;

Deflection 250mph;

Deflection 300mph;

¼ attack on Spit;

Half roll attack on Master;

¼ attack and half roll from above on Wimp;

Spit evading 200mph;

Spit evading 300 mph;

¼ attack on Master;

¼ attack on Master with patter;

Varied attacks on Wimp;

Astern shots at Spit;

Snap shots at Spit;

Attacking Wimp taking full evasion."

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Gunnery Leader (Bomber) Wing

During the simulated attacks by Spitfires on Wellingtons, the bomber Gunnery Leaders were also trained using cine-film rather than live ammunition. Again, the film was subsequently evaluated to assess proficiency. After passing the course, trainees were posted to Operational Training Units around the country, where they became Instructors to train bomber gunnery crews.

Officers commanding Central Gunnery School 1942 to 1944

Station Commanders RAF Sutton Bridge:
Officers Commanding Pilot Gunnery Instructor Training Wing, CGS:
Officers Commanding Gunnery Leader Wing, CGS:
Chief Instructors Fighter Wing, CGS:
The Central Gunnery School transferred to RAF Catfoss in March 1944.

Closure and later use

In 1958 RAF Sutton Bridge was closed, its land site sold to the Ministry of Agriculture and continues to be utilized by the Potato Marketing Board as a leading UK agricultural experiment station. Small remnants of RAF Sutton Bridge airfield however, still exist, including the recladded Hinaidi type aircraft hangar built during the airfield's on-going expansion and maintenance works carried out throughout the 1930s by "The En-Tout-Cas Co. Ltd., " of Leicester. The Hinaidi type aircraft hangar replaced two of the airfield's original four Bessonneau hangars during the 1930s, and is believed to be one of very few, if not the only one of this type, still existing in the UK.