Full WW2 control tower details and photos for this wartime airfield are coming soon. Please check back later as this is work progress. If you would like to contribute information or photos please get in touch.
RAF Ballyhalbert on the Ards Peninsula in County Down was built as part of Northern Ireland’s wartime defensive belt and came into use in 1941. Its strategic purpose was clear: protect approaches to the Irish Sea and the western seaboard, secure convoy routes, and provide fighter cover against raids and maritime threats. In practice, the station became an important sector base and a hub for both RAF Fighter Command activity and later Fleet Air Arm work-ups.
The first operational aircraft to fly from Ballyhalbert included Hawker Hurricanes, and early fighter units were tasked with readiness and interception. As the air war matured, Ballyhalbert also hosted a sequence of Allied squadrons whose presence reflected the RAF’s multinational character. Polish fighter squadrons operated from the station in the mid-war period, including the celebrated No. 303 Squadron and No. 315 Squadron, with pilots flying fighters in coastal patrol and air defence roles while also maintaining the intensive training tempo that kept units sharp.
Ballyhalbert’s wartime network included satellite fields such as RAF Kirkistown, providing extra landing options and dispersal capacity. This mattered in a region where weather could be unforgiving and where the need to keep fighters operational demanded alternatives for landing, refuelling and rapid turn-round. The station’s code, communications, and sector-control functions were part of the wider fighter defence system that integrated radar, observers and command-and-control across the region.
In 1945 Ballyhalbert’s role broadened again when it became HMS Corncrake, a Fleet Air Arm base used to ‘work up’ squadrons preparing for carrier duty. That phase brought a parade of naval air squadrons and aircraft types, plus the distinctive rhythm of deck-landing practice, formation training and gunnery drills designed to turn land-based pilots into effective carrier aviators. The transfer illustrates a key wartime pattern: airfields were reused and re-tasked as priorities shifted from home defence to offensive operations and then to post-war demobilisation.
Closed in the later 1940s and subsequently redeveloped, Ballyhalbert’s physical traces have largely been absorbed into new uses. Yet its historical importance remains: a Northern Ireland fighter station that supported air defence and training, hosted Allied squadrons – including famous Polish units – and then played a late-war role in preparing naval aviation crews for the demands of carrier operations.
The station’s coastal setting meant that maritime weather and crosswinds were constant factors, influencing runway use, maintenance schedules and the tempo of flying programmes.
The late-war Fleet Air Arm phase brought a distinct culture to the airfield – naval administration, carrier-oriented training methods, and rapid cycling of squadrons through short, intensive courses.
Even where physical remains are limited, the station’s story can be traced through squadron records, local memories and the wider network of Northern Ireland wartime airfields.
For visitors and researchers today, the most rewarding approach is to combine surviving site evidence (perimeter tracks, dispersal loops, building footprints) with squadron ORBs, logbooks and local testimony, which together recreate how the station worked day to day.