RAF Drem

RAF Drem stood just north of the village of Drem in East Lothian, Scotland, a few miles inland from the Firth of Forth. Its origins reached back to the First World War, when a landing ground known variously as West Fenton and Gullane was used by the Royal Flying Corps for home defence. The site was brought back into use in March 1939, initially for flying training, before passing to RAF Fighter Command and No. 13 Group on the outbreak of war.

For most of the conflict Drem served as a fighter station guarding Edinburgh, the naval base at Rosyth and the surrounding industrial belt of central Scotland. A long succession of squadrons rotated through, among them the Spitfire-equipped 602 (City of Glasgow) and 603 (City of Edinburgh) Auxiliary squadrons, alongside Hurricane, Defiant, Beaufighter and Mosquito units and several Commonwealth and Allied squadrons. Aircraft from Drem took part in the defence against the Luftwaffe’s early raids on Britain over the Forth in October 1939.

The airfield is best remembered as the birthplace of the Drem lighting system, a pattern of shielded approach and runway lights devised in 1940 to ease the hazardous business of landing fighters at night; it was soon adopted across the RAF. In April 1945 the station was transferred to the Admiralty and commissioned as HMS Nighthawk, operating as a naval night-fighter training school until it closed in the post-war years. The site afterwards reverted largely to farmland, with part retained as a grass airstrip and surviving buildings put to industrial use.