RAF Catterick

RAF Catterick was a Royal Air Force station in North Yorkshire, one of the oldest military airfields in Britain. It opened in September 1914 and served the Royal Flying Corps and later the RAF for eight decades, finally closing as a flying station and passing out of RAF hands in 1994. Through the Second World War it functioned principally as a fighter station within Fighter Command’s No. 13 Group, guarding the industrial north-east of England.

A long succession of fighter squadrons rotated through the airfield, among them Nos. 41, 54 and 64 Squadrons and No. 17 Squadron flying Hawker Hurricanes. The station also hosted Allied units, including the Polish No. 306 Squadron, the Norwegian Nos. 331 and 332 Squadrons, and Canadian squadrons of the RCAF. During the war Catterick controlled the satellite landing ground at Scorton and made use of nearby decoy and dispersal sites scattered across the surrounding moorland.

In the years after 1945 the role of the site shifted away from operational flying. It became home to the RAF Regiment depot and a School of Fire Fighting, and its open ground was even briefly used as the Catterick motor-racing circuit. The opening sequence of the 1945 film “The Way to the Stars” was filmed there. After the RAF departed in 1994 the land transferred to the British Army, becoming Marne Barracks within the wider Catterick Garrison.