RAF Elgin

RAF Elgin was a grass airfield in Moray, in the north-east of Scotland, lying a short distance south-west of the town of Elgin near Miltonduff. Completed in June 1940 as a satellite to the much larger RAF Lossiemouth, its landing ground was at first deliberately obstructed by the Royal Engineers, who feared it might be seized in a German invasion. Once that threat receded the airfield was cleared for flying, and the first unit, No. 57 Squadron, moved across from Lossiemouth in the summer of 1940.

For most of its working life the station served the training machinery of RAF Bomber Command rather than front-line operations. It became a key working site for No. 20 Operational Training Unit, whose Vickers Wellingtons and Avro Ansons used the field throughout 1941 and 1942 to prepare bomber crews. A number of other squadrons and aircraft types passed through over the years, including Bristol Blenheims and Hawker Hurricanes. Activity peaked in 1944, when well over a thousand RAF personnel and a couple of hundred members of the WAAF were based there.

With the war in Europe over, the airfield was reduced to care-and-maintenance status in mid-1945 and finally closed in 1947, after which the land returned to agriculture. The hangars, control tower and perimeter tracks were later cleared away, though scattered remnants survive, and a memorial near the site commemorates those who served at Elgin.