Qualla: RAF Carew Cheriton https://qualla.com/raf-carew-cheriton en-us © 2026 Bendyline Wed, 08 Jul 2026 02:40:13 GMT Qualla serial false Qualla support@bendyline.com yes https://qualla.com/_m/g/c/h/w/raf-carew-cheriton-wp/hero-small.webp Qualla: RAF Carew Cheriton https://qualla.com/raf-carew-cheriton RAF Carew Cheriton: Introduction https://qualla.com/raf-carew-cheriton/ Photo credit Stephen McKay, CC BY-SA 2.0. In the summer of 1915, two corrugated iron hangars went up on this Pembrokeshire field, each 318 feet long, sized to house non-rigid airships - blimps - that would patrol the approaches to the Bristol Channel for German submarines. The hydrogen they carried was made on site. The first crews lived in tents. Twenty-five years later, the same field reopened as RAF Carew Cheriton, and the threat had moved underwater again - U-boats, now nuclear-free and oil-burning, hunting Allied convoys in the same sea lanes. The blimps were gone. Hudsons and Ansons and Spitfires came and went. Today the airfield hosts car boot sales and a go-kart track, the control tower is restored to exactly how it looked at 23 October 1941, and a memorial remembers 5,000 American soldiers who never came home.

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Image: Stephen McKay | CC BY-SA 2.0

]]> Sun, 24 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/g/c/h/w/raf-carew-cheriton-wp/gchw-raf-carew-cheriton-intro.mp3 0:06 1 full RAF Carew Cheriton: Airships for U-Boats https://qualla.com/raf-carew-cheriton/ Photo credit Unknown author, Public domain. RNAS Pembroke - also called Milton - officially opened in August 1915, fourteen months into a war that nobody had expected to last so long. German U-boats were already strangling Allied shipping in the Western Approaches. The airship station here flew SS-class and SSZ-class non-r...

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Image: Unknown author | Public domain

]]> Sun, 24 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/g/c/h/w/raf-carew-cheriton-wp/gchw-raf-carew-cheriton-airships-for-u-boats.mp3 0:06 2 full RAF Carew Cheriton: Reopened for a Different War https://qualla.com/raf-carew-cheriton/ Photo credit Stephen McKay, CC BY-SA 2.0. The Royal Air Force opened a new station on the same site in 1939, with three runways - 16/34 at 2,296 feet, 06/24 at 2,595 feet, and 12/30 at 3,120 feet, all 150 feet wide - and two Bellman hangars. The old name had been Pembroke. The new one was Carew Cheriton, distinguishing t...

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Image: Stephen McKay | CC BY-SA 2.0

]]> Sun, 24 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/g/c/h/w/raf-carew-cheriton-wp/gchw-raf-carew-cheriton-reopened-for-a-different-war.mp3 0:06 3 full RAF Carew Cheriton: Radio School https://qualla.com/raf-carew-cheriton/ Photo credit Stephen McKay, CC BY-SA 2.0. On 1 January 1943, No. 10 Radio School RAF formed here. Wireless operators - the radio crew who handled communications and direction-finding aboard bombers, transports, and patrol aircraft - trained on a mix of types: Avro Anson Is, Airspeed Oxford Is, Lockheed Hudson Is, Tiger M...

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Image: Stephen McKay | CC BY-SA 2.0

]]> Sun, 24 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/g/c/h/w/raf-carew-cheriton-wp/gchw-raf-carew-cheriton-radio-school.mp3 0:06 4 full RAF Carew Cheriton: The 5,000 https://qualla.com/raf-carew-cheriton/ Photo credit Stephen McKay, CC BY-SA 2.0. In 2019 a memorial was unveiled at the site to the soldiers of the United States Army's 110th Infantry Regiment, who were stationed in Pembrokeshire from 1943 to 1944 in preparation for the Normandy landings. Five thousand American servicemen passed through. Many died in the libe...

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Image: Stephen McKay | CC BY-SA 2.0

]]> Sun, 24 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/g/c/h/w/raf-carew-cheriton-wp/gchw-raf-carew-cheriton-the-5-000.mp3 0:06 5 full RAF Carew Cheriton: The Field Now https://qualla.com/raf-carew-cheriton/ Photo credit Stephen McKay, CC BY-SA 2.0. Today the airfield is used for car boot sales, auctions, and a go-kart track laid out across part of the old runway. The other strips of concrete are slowly weathering. Aircraft no longer take off here. The restored control tower stands at the edge of the activity, a small herita...

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Image: Stephen McKay | CC BY-SA 2.0

]]> Sun, 24 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/g/c/h/w/raf-carew-cheriton-wp/gchw-raf-carew-cheriton-the-field-now.mp3 0:06 6 full