RAF Cleave

RAF Cleave was a grass airfield on the north Cornwall coast, roughly four miles north of Bude, that opened in May 1939. Rather than a bomber or fighter operational base, it served a specialist support role: anti-aircraft co-operation, towing targets and operating drones for the gunnery and firing ranges strung along the cliffs nearby. The station sat within RAF Fighter Command’s No. 10 Group, with its administrative parent at Weston Zoyland.

A succession of small units passed through during the war. The No. 1 Anti-Aircraft Co-operation Unit was an early occupant, flying types such as the Westland Wallace and Hawker Henley, and various lettered AACU flights and numbered Anti-Aircraft Co-operation Flights followed, using the Henley, Fairey Battle and de Havilland Tiger Moth alongside the radio-controlled Queen Bee. In December 1943 several of these flights were amalgamated to form No. 639 Squadron, which flew Henleys and Hawker Hurricanes on the target-towing task. The Fleet Air Arm’s No. 771 Squadron also made use of the site.

The airfield was placed on care and maintenance in 1945 and formally closed on 28 November that year. In the post-war decades the cliff-top location was redeveloped as a government signals station, and the ground now forms part of the GCHQ Bude (Morwenstow) intercept site, leaving little of the original aerodrome.