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 Pocklington, near York in the East Riding of Yorkshire, was a Bomber Command station whose wartime story is closely bound to No. 102 (Ceylon) Squadron. The station opened before the war and came into its own during the bomber offensive, operating heavy night sorties into occupied Europe and Germany. Like many Yorkshire bomber bases, Pocklington’s landscape was shaped by the ‘Class A’ bomber airfield pattern: three concrete runways, perimeter track, dispersal loops and a broad technical site designed to support round-the-clock operations.
No. 102 Squadron’s presence gives Pocklington much of its character. The squadron began the war with the Armstrong Whitworth Whitley, moved into the Handley Page Halifax in early 1942, and later operated Halifax variants through to 1945. From bases such as Pocklington, Halifax crews joined the night war against industrial and transport targets, and the squadron also took part in major set-piece efforts including mass raids. In 1944 the bomber campaign increasingly focused on rail and transport targets in France as part of preparations for the Normandy invasion; stations like Pocklington therefore sit at the intersection of strategic bombing and direct support to Allied land operations.
The Halifax defined the station’s operational life. It was a four-engined heavy bomber with the range and payload to strike deep targets, but it demanded an immense support apparatus: engine changes, constant airframe inspections, armourer work on bombs and fusing, and the administrative and intelligence cycle that turned each night into a repeatable system. The station’s tempo would have been familiar across Bomber Command: afternoon briefings, evening engine run-ups, long take-off intervals to get full bomb loads airborne, then the anxious wait for returns in the early hours.
Pocklington’s wartime story is also about people and loss. Night bombing was hazardous even before the enemy was met: weather, icing, navigation error and airfield accidents were part of the risk. Over hostile territory, flak, night fighters and mid-air collisions took their toll. Each operational station therefore became a community shaped by routine and sudden tragedy, with memorial culture embedded into local memory.
After the war, like many bomber stations, Pocklington’s active life declined. Yet its historical value remains strong because it represents the operational ‘middle’ of the bomber war: a station with a clear squadron identity, a primary heavy bomber type, and a long operational arc from the early Halifax era through the invasion build-up and late-war transport attacks. For anyone studying Bomber Command’s Yorkshire bases, Pocklington is a key reference point.
WW2 units, roles and aircraft:
- No. 102 (Ceylon) Squadron – Bomber Command night operations
- Aircraft progression: Armstrong Whitworth Whitley (early war), then Handley Page Halifax (Mk II and later marks)
- Operational themes: strategic raids on Germany; 1944 rail/transport attacks supporting the invasion
Pocklington’s surviving records and memories also capture the social dimension of a bomber base: dances, films, brief moments of leave, and the bonds between local residents and airmen. Those moments mattered because they sustained morale in a system that demanded repeated exposure to risk. The airfield’s history is therefore both strategic and personal.