RAF Dunino

RAF Dunino lay in the rural eastern corner of Fife, a few miles south-east of St Andrews, on land requisitioned in 1939 as a satellite landing ground for the larger station at Leuchars. It opened in April 1941 with grass landing strips and served first under RAF control in the army co-operation and fighter-reconnaissance role, helping watch the Scottish east coast against the threat of invasion.

The station’s best-known wartime occupant was No. 309 (Polish) Squadron, which flew Westland Lysanders before re-equipping with North American Mustang fighter-reconnaissance aircraft, departing late in 1942. In December 1942 Dunino passed to the Royal Navy and was commissioned as HMS Jackdaw II, an outstation of the nearby Fleet Air Arm base at Crail. As a naval air station it hosted a long succession of squadrons engaged in torpedo-bomber reconnaissance training and related work, flying types such as the Fairey Swordfish and Barracuda and the Supermarine Walrus, and from the middle of 1944 it was used increasingly for aircraft storage.

Flying ended after the war and the site closed around 1946, though the Admiralty retained it until it was sold in 1957. The land returned to agriculture, and the derelict control tower, surviving hangars and stretches of perimeter track remain as reminders of its wartime use.