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.
Overview
RAF Dounreay sits on the far north coast of Scotland in Caithness, a remote location chosen for its access to Atlantic and North Sea approaches. During the Second World War the airfield’s story is defined as much by what it was intended to become as by what it actually achieved: a late-war, northern station planned for maritime and naval aviation needs, but never fully developed into an operational flying base before hostilities ended.
Why it was built
Work began in 1942, at a time when Britain’s northern waters and the routes around Orkney and Shetland remained strategically sensitive. Coastal Command required dispersal options and potential staging points for patrol aircraft, and the Admiralty also had an interest in airfields that could support fleet activity and convoy defence. Dounreay’s position offered coverage of northern sea lanes and the wider approaches to Scapa Flow.
From RAF project to Admiralty control
Despite its promise, the station struggled to find a clear operational owner. Coastal Command declined to take it on, Bomber Command also passed, and the airfield was offered to the Admiralty. It was transferred to Admiralty control on 15 May 1944 and was to be commissioned under the Royal Navy as HMS Siskin. Construction, however, remained incomplete: the site had hangars and a runway system planned, but wartime resources were increasingly concentrated on established airfields and on preparations for operations in northwest Europe. By the time Germany surrendered in May 1945, Dounreay still had not matured into a fully-fledged Fleet Air Arm station, and no operational FAA squadrons are recorded as being based there during the war.
Care and maintenance, then closure
In the immediate post-war period the station was reduced to care and maintenance status. From 29 September 1945 it was held under the title HMS Tern III, as a tender to HMS Fulmar at RAF Lossiemouth, reflecting administrative rather than operational flying activity. In 1946 it became a tender to Lossiemouth itself, and in 1954 it returned to the Air Ministry. The airfield’s later history became intertwined with the development of the Dounreay nuclear establishment: in 1955 the United Kingdom Atomic Energy Authority took over the site, and the runway remained usable for many years as part of the wider complex.
Legacy
Dounreay is a useful reminder that Britain’s wartime airfield network was dynamic. Stations were planned, expanded or abandoned according to operational need, resources and changing strategic priorities. Although Dounreay did not become a major wartime flying base, its construction reflects the continuing concern for Britain’s northern maritime flank, and the later reuse of the site shows how wartime infrastructure could be repurposed for entirely different national priorities in the decades that followed.