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 South Cerney, near Cirencester in Gloucestershire, was established in the late 1930s as a flying training station and remained heavily associated with instruction throughout the Second World War. While many wartime airfields were built primarily for operational squadrons, South Cerney’s main contribution was to the RAF’s vast training system – producing pilots and aircrew at the speed and scale needed for a global conflict.
In its early years, the station supported Service Flying Training, and as wartime requirements changed it adapted its syllabus. By March 1942 it was converted into No. 3 (Pilots) Advanced Flying Unit, designed to orient foreign-trained pilots to British conditions, standards and procedures. This was an important function as Commonwealth and Allied trainees arrived with differing backgrounds and needed to integrate rapidly into RAF methods, including navigation techniques, radio procedures, formation flying and operational discipline.
South Cerney hosted a variety of training and support units during the war, reflecting the layered nature of RAF instruction. Units associated with the airfield included an Initial Training School, a Flying Training School, gliding instruction (through an RAF Gliding School), communications and administrative flights, and specialist beam approach training flights that taught instrument landing using radio aids – critical for night and bad-weather operations. The presence of an Air Crew Allocation Unit and an Aircrew Officer Training School also highlights how the station contributed to sorting, assigning and preparing personnel for their next stages of training or service.
The aircraft seen at training stations like South Cerney varied depending on unit and period but commonly included elementary trainers such as the de Havilland Tiger Moth, advanced trainers such as the North American Harvard and Miles Master, and twin-engine trainers such as the Airspeed Oxford or Avro Anson for navigation and multi-engine handling. The constant traffic of training sorties – circuits, cross-countries, instrument approaches and formation practice – would have been a defining feature of daily life, supported by instructors, controllers and a large maintenance workforce.
After the war, South Cerney continued in training and support roles before eventually being transferred to the Army and becoming the Duke of Gloucester Barracks. The survival of a control tower and other structures helps keep the airfield’s RAF past visible. South Cerney’s wartime story is therefore a reminder that victory relied not only on famous combat units, but on training stations that transformed civilians into competent aircrew and ensured that operational squadrons were continually replenished with skilled personnel.
For researchers and visitors, RAF South Cerney can often be understood through the surviving pattern of its runways, perimeter track and dispersal points. Even where buildings have vanished, aerial photographs and ground traces can reveal the technical site, the former station entrance, and the ‘domestic’ camps where personnel lived. These physical clues help connect the local landscape to the wider wartime system of aircrew generation, logistics and operations.