The sleepy little village of Kemble in Gloucestershire changed forever in 1936. Like many other small communities in Wiltshire and Gloucestershire - Aston Down, Hullavington, Wroughton - they had been selected as part of the Royal Air Force's '3rd Phase' expansion scheme. Already provided with enough fighter and bomber bases for their frontline force, now airfields were needed well out of range of serious attacks from their potential enemy, the German Luftwaffe. These new airfields were to host Maintenance Units, and training schools - vital tasks, but ones which could not be exposed to easy attack.
Quickly the RAF laid out a standard pattern of runways, with an over-abundance of hangars, for RAF Kemble was to become home to No 5 Maintenance Unit. 5 MU was to be the longest 'tenant' of the airfield, dealing in the preparation of thousands of Maryland, Wellington and Hudson bombers for overseas flights to their squadrons in the Middle East, via the Overseas Aircraft Delivery Flight, part of No. 44 Group, RAF. The Gloster Aircraft Co. established a unit which was building Hawker Typhoons under license on the airfield, and No. 4 Service Ferry Pool moved in from Cardiff, to co-ordinate all the RAF ferry pilots (the parallel civilian organization, the Air. Transport Auxiliary, was headquartered at White Waltham, near London). Kemble was a very busy place indeed - by 1941, the airfield had seen 41 different types of aircraft, and was dispatching Hawker Hurricane fighters and Bristol Beaufort torpedo bombers overseas, as well.
Kemble had a 'quiet' war, playing no active part in the invasion of Europe until late 1944, when two Troop Carrier Groups of the 9th Air Force, USAAF began flying re-supply missions to the newly liberated areas behind the front line. When peace came, Kemble saw the most amazing disposal sales, when many hundreds of light aircraft types which were now not needed by the RAF/RN being auctioned off (the fighters and bombers were, of course, scrapped).
Jets came with the Cold War, with Kemble servicing almost every Hawker Hunter ever built! The RAF's Central Flying School moved in, and with them, the famous 'Red Arrows' display team. The 'Reds' were to stay at Kemble for 16 years, and still make sentimental journeys back! The USAFE briefly took over in 1983, and used the highly trained civilian workforce to repair corrosion problems with some of their A10 Thunderbolt II aircraft - which were soon followed by KC-135, F-5, F-15 and C-130 types. The US departure was swift, and by 1993 there was no active military presence on the airfield for the first time.
Fortunately, a local businessman named Ronan Harvey stepped in, and saved Kemble from becoming yet another 'industrial development site'! Now it is Cotswold Airport (although the official name in CAA documents is Kemble Aerodrome), and is a bustling 'general aviation' airfield, as well as having two flying clubs, a flying school, an specialist 'parting out' aviation facility - run by Air Salvage International (who remove re-useable parts from redundant airliners and scrap the rest), and Chevron Aircraft Maintenance Ltd, who are BAe 146/RJ, BAe ATP and Bombardier Challenger 600 servicing specialists.
As a holder of a CAA Ordinary License (No. P863), Kemble offers arriving pilots (who must have prior permission) a Flight Information/Basic Service, as 'Kemble Information' on 118.900MHz, and has its own NDB (Non-Directional Beacon) with a 15 nautical mile range. The Runway 08/26 is 6,591 feet long, and is quite capable of taking lightly loaded A300 and Boeing 747 aircraft. The Operations Building/Control Tower you can see above has a modern 'Visual Control Room' (with tinted windows) which would not have been like this in World War Two, of course - although it still has the old-fashioned 'signal square' in front, where visual signals were passed to arriving aircraft!
One excellent development, on 22nd October, 2012, has been the establishment of one of the two Operations Hubs for the UK's Global Disaster Response Team (the other is in Dubai), administered by the UK Department for International Development. Stocks of tents, first aid packs, sleeping bags, water purification equipment and other emergency items are held at Kemble, ready to be dispatched by air around the globe by the UK's Rapid Reaction Force, whenever disaster strikes.
I should explain that I have a strong connection to Kemble, as for many years my friend David and I were part of some of the air events which regularly take place here. I would heartily recommend the Battle of Britain Weekend show - full of nostalgia!
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