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 Barton’ is best understood through the wartime story of Barton Aerodrome, now Manchester City Airport. Before the war it was a municipal aerodrome serving the Manchester area, but in 1939-40 its value changed: it became a practical support site for military training, maintenance and aircraft testing tied to the region’s huge industrial capacity. In a war that demanded aircraft in unprecedented numbers, places like Barton were as important in their own way as front-line fighter or bomber stations.
At the outbreak of the conflict, the airfield was commandeered for military purposes. Barton’s wartime role leaned strongly toward engineering, repair and acceptance flying – work that kept aircraft in the air. Contemporary accounts of the aerodrome emphasise maintenance and overhaul activity alongside testing of large numbers of Percival Proctor trainer aircraft built at nearby Trafford Park. This type of programme required a rhythm of factory delivery, assembly checks, flight testing, snag rectification and paperwork before aircraft could be passed into service.
Barton also supported repair work on a range of aircraft types. Wartime repair organisations and maintenance crews dealt with everything from routine servicing to complex repairs, including battle damage and the wear-and-tear generated by intensive training. The mix of aircraft associated with maintenance and repair included trainers and communications types but also combat aircraft brought in for work, reflecting the ‘back-room’ reality of air power: an aircraft is only operational if people, tools and spares can keep it serviceable.
Because Barton sat within a densely populated and industrialised area, camouflage, security and careful control of movements were essential. Flights were planned to minimise risk and disruption, and the station’s activity often blended with the broader wartime atmosphere of the North West – blackouts, air raid warnings, and the constant urgency of production. The airfield also contributed to the training pipeline indirectly, by ensuring that training aircraft were delivered and maintained so that pilots, navigators and other aircrew could keep flying.
Post-war, Barton’s civil aviation identity returned and has endured, but the wartime years are a reminder that the RAF’s effectiveness depended on far more than famous operational bases. ‘Support’ airfields like Barton were part of the industrial air war, where engineering skill and repetitive test flying translated directly into trained aircrew, reliable aircraft and, ultimately, sustained operational capability.
Engineering-heavy wartime work created a different kind of risk culture: rigorous inspections, acceptance paperwork, and repeated proving flights where test pilots identified faults before aircraft entered service.
The aerodrome’s proximity to manufacturing meant that Barton was part of a tight regional loop – factory, airfield, test flight, rectification – repeated at scale across the war years.
Because this was a working airfield in a built-up area, local observation and informal memory can be unusually rich, with photographs and recollections often focusing on unusual aircraft visiting for repair.
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.