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 Gatwick occupies a unique place in wartime aviation history because it began the war as a modern civil airport and ended it as part of the RAF’s infrastructure network. Before 1939 the airfield was already a growing London gateway, and that meant it possessed assets the RAF valued immediately: hardstanding areas, hangars, passenger buildings that could be adapted for administration, and an airfield location within easy reach of London’s command structure.
Once war began, Gatwick’s civil role was curtailed and the site was requisitioned for military use. In the pressured months of 1940, airfields around London were not only fighter stations but also hubs for communications, ferrying and emergency support. Gatwick’s position in the defended south-east meant it existed in the same operational environment as Battle of Britain stations: blackouts, alert states, camouflage measures and the constant movement of aircraft overhead. Even when not hosting a resident fighter squadron long-term, it could be used as a relief landing ground, a dispersal site, or a place to accept aircraft temporarily when other stations were overloaded or threatened.
As the war settled into a longer campaign, Gatwick’s usefulness increasingly lay in support functions. Large numbers of aircraft and personnel needed to be moved efficiently around the country, and airfields close to London were natural nodes for liaison and transport movements. Staff flights, communications aircraft and ferry pilots moved between factories, depots and operational bases, carrying people, paperwork and urgent parts. Such tasks rarely appear in dramatic narratives, but they were essential to keeping squadrons supplied, keeping command decisions connected to frontline realities, and ensuring that damaged aircraft could be routed quickly to maintenance and repair facilities.
Gatwick also illustrates a broader wartime theme: the conversion of civilian infrastructure into military capability. Buildings designed for passengers became offices and briefing spaces. Civil airfield services were adapted to wartime procedures. Security and defence requirements were layered onto an airport that had previously been open and commercial. The site’s proximity to London also meant that it sat within the bomber threat zone, and the wider area experienced raids and disruption during the Blitz period, shaping how the airfield could operate and how personnel lived and worked.
- Primary wartime role: a requisitioned civil airport used for support flying, liaison, ferry and relief landing functions within the defended London region.
- Typical activity: communications flights, transport movements, aircraft repositioning between depots and operational stations, and diversion support.
- Why it mattered: helped maintain the ‘connective tissue’ of the RAF system around the capital.
After 1945, Gatwick’s civilian future reasserted itself and it eventually became one of the world’s best-known commercial airports. That later prominence can overshadow its wartime chapter, but the Second World War story remains important: Gatwick is a clear example of how Britain rapidly militarised its aviation assets and used them flexibly to support a national air war.