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 Carlisle began as Kingstown municipal airport in the early 1930s, a grass airfield on the northern edge of Carlisle. In 1936 it was purchased by the Air Ministry and rebuilt into a modern RAF station with concrete runways, hangars and the administrative buildings needed for sustained operations. The airfield opened for RAF service on 26 September 1938 and initially housed bomber squadrons flying the Fairey Battle, reflecting the RAF’s pre-war emphasis on expanding its striking force.
When war began in 1939, Kingstown’s limitations became clear. The latest multi-engined bombers required longer runways, and there was insufficient room for major extensions. Rather than abandon the location, the RAF developed a new bomber-capable station nearby at Crosby-on-Eden (opened February 1941). Kingstown itself remained valuable and was converted into a training base – an essential step as the RAF’s need for pilots surged.
During the war years Kingstown became No. 24 Elementary Flying Training School, and in 1941 it was redesignated No. 15 Elementary Flying Training School. Here, new cadets learned the fundamentals: take-offs and landings, circuits, forced landing drills, navigation basics and disciplined airmanship. The main trainers were the de Havilland Tiger Moth and the Miles Magister, aircraft that demanded careful handling and therefore produced sound pilots when used intensively.
To increase capacity and reduce congestion, the Elementary Flying Training School expanded onto several local grass fields – Harker, Heathlands, Rockcliffe and Cargo – and even used a satellite strip at RAF Kirkpatrick just across the Scottish border near Gretna Green. This dispersal system kept training moving despite weather issues and allowed multiple streams of students to fly simultaneously. Such networks were typical of the wartime training machine, which had to scale up rapidly without sacrificing safety and standards.
Kingstown’s wartime history also contains dramatic incidents that show how busy and exposed training stations could be. In June 1940 a Fairey Battle was taken on an unauthorised flight by an unqualified pilot; after several failed landing attempts it crashed, destroying the aircraft and killing the pilot. Even more extraordinary was an audacious escape attempt in November 1941 by two German prisoners of war. Disguised with forged documents, they entered the station, started a Miles Magister with the help of an RAF mechanic, and took off. Short on fuel and unable to reach their intended destination, they were eventually recaptured. Episodes like this underline the mixture of routine, risk and wartime unpredictability that could exist even at a training base.
By 1945, Kingstown’s wartime flying role had ended and the station moved into care and maintenance. Its post-war identity shifted towards storage and maintenance as RAF Carlisle, but the Second World War story is rooted in the training effort: thousands of hours flown over the Cumbrian landscape, the steady production of pilots, and the dispersed network of satellite fields that helped keep Britain’s aircrew pipeline flowing at a critical moment in history.