Geograph - photograph every grid square

The standard RAF Watch Office/Control Tower designed for WW2 temporary airfields. The building is in a good state of preservation, and is in use today as a clubhouse. A survey conducted in 2000 mentions the tower in conjunction with other buildings on the site, whose group survival is acknowledged as being particularly rare. These other buildings are the Floodlight Trailer shed, and the Fire Tender shelter.

A brief history: Dunkeswell Airfield was built by George Wimpey & Co and following its completion in 1943, was occupied by the USAAF 479th Anti-Submarine Squadron, and later the US Navy under the control of No. 19 Group RAF Coastal Command. The USAAF conducted operations from here using specialised B-24 Liberator bombers in anti-submarine missions over the Bay of Biscay. This role was subsequently handed over to the US Navy in November 1943, who continued the patrols using the same reassigned Liberators. The first unit of theirs to arrive was the US Navy's Patrol Bomber Squadron VPB-103, and were the first United States Navy unit to train with the RAF. They were later joined by VB-105 and *VB-110.

With the departure of the Americans and at the end of hostilities, the station was handed back to the RAF whose 16 Ferry Unit, RAF Transport Command, ferried aircraft to the Middle East during September 1946 - December 1948. The airfield closed to military use in 1949.

*Serving in VB-110 was Lt. Joseph P. Kennedy (older brother of the future US President JFK), who later was killed serving in Special Attack Unit One (SAU-1) piloting a radio controlled Liberator drone packed with Torpex high explosives. Once radio control had been established by a Lockheed Ventura aircraft, the crew were expected to parachute to safety and leave their airborne bomb heading for France towards their objective, the German V-3 Supergun site at Mimoyecques. But the aircraft exploded prematurely over Suffolk shortly after take-off, and Lt Kennedy and his co-pilot Lt Wilford J. Willy were killed.

ST1207 : RAF Dunkeswell: a tour of a WW2 airfield - Control Tower (2)