Qualla: RAF Llandwrog https://qualla.com/raf-llandwrog 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/k/y/raf-llandwrog-wp/hero-small.webp Qualla: RAF Llandwrog https://qualla.com/raf-llandwrog RAF Llandwrog: Introduction https://qualla.com/raf-llandwrog/ Photo credit Mike Searle, CC BY-SA 2.0. In 1942, a young RAF medical officer at Llandwrog watched crews crash into the mountains of Snowdonia and decided someone should go find them. Flight Lieutenant George Desmond Graham organised a small team of station personnel - climbers, walkers, anyone who knew rope work - to scramble out on bicycle and on foot whenever the operations room reported an overdue aircraft. The Royal Air Force Mountain Rescue Service grew from that improvised effort. Graham would be awarded the MBE in 1943 for the work, then sent to Burma where he picked up a DSO for a rescue behind Japanese lines. The mountains he was reading - Snowdon, the Glyderau, the Carneddau - rise just inland from where his airfield was laid out at sea level, exactly.

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Image: Mike Searle | CC BY-SA 2.0

]]> Sun, 24 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/g/c/k/y/raf-llandwrog-wp/gcky-raf-llandwrog-intro.mp3 0:06 1 full RAF Llandwrog: Built at Sea Level https://qualla.com/raf-llandwrog/ Photo credit Mike Searle, CC BY-SA 2.0. RAF Llandwrog opened in July 1941 on a low peninsula between Caernarfon Bay and Foryd Bay, the estuary of the Afon Carrog and the Afon Gwyrfai. The site was almost flat to start with; the engineers levelled it out at sea level - quite literally - and laid three runways, each fift...

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Image: Mike Searle | CC BY-SA 2.0

]]> Sun, 24 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/g/c/k/y/raf-llandwrog-wp/gcky-raf-llandwrog-built-at-sea-level.mp3 0:06 2 full RAF Llandwrog: The Mountain Rescue Idea https://qualla.com/raf-llandwrog/ Photo credit Richard Croft, CC BY-SA 2.0. Training operations are dangerous in their own right. Inexperienced crews, poor weather, the looming mass of Snowdonia just to the east - the combination meant aircraft went down with depressing regularity, and crews who survived the crash often died of exposure before anyone rea...

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Image: Richard Croft | CC BY-SA 2.0

]]> Sun, 24 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/g/c/k/y/raf-llandwrog-wp/gcky-raf-llandwrog-the-mountain-rescue-idea.mp3 0:06 3 full RAF Llandwrog: Strange Postwar Cargoes https://qualla.com/raf-llandwrog/ Photo credit Mike Searle, CC BY-SA 2.0. Flying training ended in June 1945, but the airfield's military life was not quite over. Between 1946 and 1956 Llandwrog hosted No. 277 Maintenance Unit and was the staging point for two operations with grim names. Operation Dismal handled the disposal of captured German chemical...

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Image: Mike Searle | CC BY-SA 2.0

]]> Sun, 24 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/g/c/k/y/raf-llandwrog-wp/gcky-raf-llandwrog-strange-postwar-cargoes.mp3 0:06 4 full RAF Llandwrog: Caernarfon Airport Today https://qualla.com/raf-llandwrog/ Photo credit No machine-readable author provided. Rhion assumed (based on copyright claims)., Public domain. The airfield reopened in 1969 as Caernarfon Airport (ICAO: EGCK), and it has been quietly busy ever since with general aviation, sightseeing flights over Snowdonia, parachuting, and pilot training. Since 2015, when the RAF's search and rescue role was contracted out, Bristow Heli...

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Image: No machine-readable author provided. Rhion assumed (based on copyright claims). | Public domain

]]> Sun, 24 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/g/c/k/y/raf-llandwrog-wp/gcky-raf-llandwrog-caernarfon-airport-today.mp3 0:06 5 full