Qualla: RAF Scampton

RAF Scampton: Introduction

Wed, 27 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit A. Carty (talk), CC BY-SA 3.0. On the night of 16 May 1943, nineteen modified Avro Lancasters of No. 617 Squadron took off from this airfield carrying a bomb that bounced. Twelve hours later, eight of them had not come back. Fifty-three men were dead. Two German dams — the Möhne and the Eder — were breached, releasing 330 million tonnes of water into the Ruhr valley and killing somewhere between 1,300 and 1,650 people, most of them civilians and forced labourers in camps downstream. The Wing Commander who led the raid was Guy Gibson, twenty-four years old, who won the Victoria Cross for it and died in another aircraft seventeen months later. His dog Nigger had been killed by a car outside the station gate on the day of the raid and was buried that same night outside Gibson's office at No. 3 Hangar. RAF Scampton closed as a working RAF station on 31 December 2022. The grave is still there.

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Image: A. Carty (talk) | CC BY-SA 3.0

RAF Scampton: The men of 617 Squadron

Wed, 27 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Public domain. 617 Squadron was formed at Scampton in March 1943 for a single mission — the attack on the Ruhr dams that Barnes Wallis had spent two years convincing the Air Ministry to authorise. The crews were young, experienced, drawn from across the Commonwealth. Many had completed full tou...

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Image: Public domain

RAF Scampton: The dog at the gate

Wed, 27 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Linda Mellor, CC BY-SA 2.0. The grave outside Hangar 3 has long been a place that visitors find awkward to talk about. Gibson's black Labrador was named with a racial slur — the word was in common, casual use in 1940s Britain, and his crew adopted it as the code-word that confirmed the Möhne Dam had been br...

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Image: Linda Mellor | CC BY-SA 2.0

RAF Scampton: The Red Arrows years

Wed, 27 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit TSRL, CC BY-SA 3.0. After the bombers and the Vulcans (No. 83 Squadron returned to Scampton with V-bombers in 1960), the station became the home of the Royal Air Force Aerobatic Team. The Red Arrows moved to Scampton in 1983, left briefly, and returned permanently in 2000. For two decades the red Ha...

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Image: TSRL | CC BY-SA 3.0

RAF Scampton: What happens to a closed station

Wed, 27 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Harvey Milligan, CC BY-SA 4.0. RAF Scampton closed as a working station on 31 December 2022. The Red Arrows and their personnel relocated nine miles south down the A15 to RAF Waddington in October 2022, ahead of the formal closure. After closure, the government proposed using Scampton's buildings to house asyl...

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Image: Harvey Milligan | CC BY-SA 4.0