RAF Castletown

RAF Castletown was a fighter station in Caithness, in the far north of Scotland, brought into use during the summer of 1940. Beginning life as a satellite of nearby RAF Wick before becoming an operational station in its own right, it sat within Fighter Command and was assigned to No. 13 Group and later No. 14 Group. Its principal task was the air defence of Scapa Flow, the vital Royal Navy anchorage in the Orkneys, against German raids on the fleet.

A long succession of squadrons passed through Castletown during the war, reflecting the rotation of units to and from the busy fronts further south. Hawker Hurricanes and Supermarine Spitfires were the mainstay fighters, flown by RAF, Canadian, Czech, Norwegian and Fleet Air Arm units among others, while Fairey Fulmars, Westland Lysanders and Avro Ansons also operated from the field. From 1943 the station took on an air-sea rescue role, with No. 282 Squadron formed there for that purpose.

The airfield, which had paved runways and used Brims Mains as an emergency landing ground and a decoy site at Barrock, closed at the end of 1945. The land afterwards returned to farming, and the station’s history is preserved locally at the Castlehill Heritage Centre, with RAF graves remaining at Olrig New Cemetery.