RAF Banff

RAF Banff, also known locally as Boyndie, stood on the Aberdeenshire coast a few miles west of the town of Banff in north-east Scotland. Construction began in 1942, and although the site had been considered for Bomber Command it was instead opened in April 1943 under Flying Training Command, where No. 14 (Pilots) Advanced Flying Unit trained aircrew until the summer of 1944.

In the autumn of 1944 the station passed to Coastal Command, No. 18 Group, and took on the role for which it is chiefly remembered. As the home of the Banff Strike Wing, it gathered together Beaufighter and de Havilland Mosquito squadrons, among them Nos. 143, 144, 235 and 248 Squadrons RAF alongside Commonwealth and Allied units including No. 404 Squadron RCAF, No. 489 Squadron RNZAF and No. 333 Squadron of the Royal Norwegian Air Force. Under the command of Group Captain Max Aitken, the wing flew long, hazardous anti-shipping strikes against German vessels, supply ships and U-boats in the North Sea and the fjords of occupied Norway, operating until the German surrender in May 1945.

The airfield closed as an operational station in 1946. In later years it saw brief civil flying use before the runways and buildings were given over to agriculture and industry. The site today carries Boyndie Wind Farm, while the control tower, several wartime structures and stretches of the runways survive, and a memorial to the Banff Strike Wing was unveiled in 1989.