RAF Exeter began life as a civil airfield, but it was built with an eye on war. When the RAF needed a modern, all-weather fighter station in the South West, Exeter was ready to be turned into one.
From civil airport to RAF station (1937 to mid-1940)
Exeter opened as an airport in 1937. On the day Britain entered the war in September 1939, it was taken over by the Air Ministry. The wartime conversion was substantial: three asphalt runways were laid, hangars and technical facilities added, and the airfield expanded. This was not a token requisition. Exeter was being made into a proper fighter station, capable of operating when grass fields were waterlogged and useless.
Alongside the building work, experimental and research activity arrived early, including armament and gunnery trials linked to Farnborough. That sort of work suited Exeter because it had space, new surfaces, and relative freedom from the constant pressure of the South East.
The Battle of Britain’s western edge (July 1940 onwards)
Exeter became officially operational as an RAF station on 6 July 1940. The first front-line fighter squadrons to base there were No. 213 Squadron (from 18 June 1940) and No. 87 Squadron (from 5 July), flying Hurricanes.
Their job was the unglamorous but necessary business of defending the Channel approaches, shipping, and key naval points such as Portland, while also being pulled east as wider crises demanded. Exeter’s fighters were heavily engaged through the summer of 1940. It sat at the far western edge of the Battle of Britain story, but it was still in the fight, scrambling to raids along the coast and taking losses as well as claiming victories.
Night fighting and a busy 1941 to 1943
As the air war shifted, Exeter’s role broadened. Night defence became important, and specialist units rotated through. A Polish-manned Defiant night-fighter squadron is particularly associated with Exeter, and convoy patrols and coastal sorties became routine as the threat changed from daylight mass raids to a mixture of night attacks and maritime problems.
The station was also attacked. During the spring of 1941, Exeter suffered heavy raids that damaged buildings and destroyed aircraft. Like other fighter stations, it answered with repairs, dispersal, and the hardening of defences. Through 1942, Exeter’s operational flying included night patrols and anti-shipping work, with the resident squadrons changing as needs shifted.
By April 1943, the departure of the longest-stay operational squadron marked another change, and Exeter began to look less like a permanent fighter sector base and more like a useful asset that could be re-tasked quickly.
USAAF Station 463: the 440th Troop Carrier Group (April to September 1944)
In April 1944, Exeter was handed over to the United States Army Air Forces and became USAAF Station 463. Four squadrons of the 440th Troop Carrier Group arrived to train for the invasion of Normandy.
This is Exeter’s other defining wartime chapter. Troop carrier work was repetitive, technical and dangerous. Crews practised formation flying at low level, towing gliders, and working with airborne troops. On D-Day and the days immediately following, the group flew sorties carrying paratroopers and supplies into Normandy, and it took losses doing it. In September 1944 the unit moved to France as the front advanced.
Training Command and the return to peace (1945 to 1946)
After the Americans departed, RAF use resumed on a smaller scale. In January 1945 the station transferred to Training Command, and glider training became a feature, with tug aircraft and gliders operating in the area.
The end of the war did not instantly empty the airfield. RAF units continued to come and go in 1945 and 1946. Exeter even saw early jets, with Meteors appearing in 1946.
In January 1946 the airfield was handed to the Ministry of Civil Aviation, and the RAF finally left later in 1946, though some gliding activity continued afterwards.
What RAF Exeter became
Exeter’s post-war story is the story of many wartime airfields that had started as civilian sites: it returned to civil flying, engineering, and commercial aviation, evolving into today’s airport. But the wartime footprint is still there if you know what to look for. The runways, dispersals, and defensive works were built for a short, urgent period, and then quietly folded back into peacetime life.
Exeter’s importance in the Second World War sits in two clear roles. In 1940 it was a working Fighter Command station fighting on the western margin of the Battle of Britain. In 1944 it became a troop carrier base preparing for, and then flying, the opening moves of the liberation of Western Europe.