Qualla: RAF Tern Hill https://qualla.com/raf-tern-hill en-us © 2026 Bendyline Wed, 08 Jul 2026 02:40:15 GMT Qualla serial false Qualla support@bendyline.com yes https://qualla.com/_m/g/c/q/h/raf-tern-hill-wp/hero-small.webp Qualla: RAF Tern Hill https://qualla.com/raf-tern-hill RAF Tern Hill: Introduction https://qualla.com/raf-tern-hill/ Photo credit Novacool88 (talk), CC BY-SA 3.0. On a July day in 1940, ten bombs fell on the airfield at Tern Hill in Shropshire. They were small bombs, dropped by a small Luftwaffe raid, and they exploded on a runway already busy with Spitfires preparing for combat. Nobody was killed. Nobody was wounded. The bombs cratered the grass, the ground crews patched the holes, and the Spitfires of Number 611 (West Lancashire) Squadron Auxiliary Air Force - based at Tern Hill since the previous October - continued flying their patrols through the long English summer of the Battle of Britain. The airfield kept training pilots, kept dispersing fighters, and would keep doing so under different uses for the next thirty-six years before passing - still mostly intact - to the Army in 1976.

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Image: Novacool88 (talk) | CC BY-SA 3.0

]]> Wed, 27 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/g/c/q/h/raf-tern-hill-wp/gcqh-raf-tern-hill-intro.mp3 0:06 1 full RAF Tern Hill: From Race Stables to Spitfires https://qualla.com/raf-tern-hill/ Photo credit No machine-readable author provided. Jasonjsmith assumed (based on copyright claims)., Public domain. The story begins in 1916, when the airfield first opened under the Royal Flying Corps. Number 95 Squadron RFC arrived in October 1917, only to move to Shotwick after three weeks - the kind of constant relocation that characterised wartime training. Three more squadrons arrived on...

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

]]> Wed, 27 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/g/c/q/h/raf-tern-hill-wp/gcqh-raf-tern-hill-from-race-stables-to-spitfires.mp3 0:06 2 full RAF Tern Hill: The Battle of Britain Years https://qualla.com/raf-tern-hill/ Photo credit A. R. Yeo MortimerCat, CC BY 2.5. On 10 October 1939 the first fighter squadron arrived: Number 611 (West Lancashire) Squadron AAF, flying Spitfire I aircraft, an Auxiliary Air Force unit drawn originally from volunteer pilots in the Liverpool area. They stayed until December 1940, covering the entire crisis peri...

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Image: A. R. Yeo MortimerCat | CC BY 2.5

]]> Wed, 27 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/g/c/q/h/raf-tern-hill-wp/gcqh-raf-tern-hill-the-battle-of-britain-years.mp3 0:06 3 full RAF Tern Hill: The Maintenance Years https://qualla.com/raf-tern-hill/ Photo credit Harvey Milligan, CC0. After the fighters left, the airfield turned to training and storage. A maintenance unit had opened on the south-east side of the runway in June 1937 as Number 4 Aircraft Storage Unit, later renamed Number 24 Maintenance Unit. Damaged aircraft came in to be repaired or scrapped. ...

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Image: Harvey Milligan | CC0

]]> Wed, 27 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/g/c/q/h/raf-tern-hill-wp/gcqh-raf-tern-hill-the-maintenance-years.mp3 0:06 4 full RAF Tern Hill: Closure and Survival https://qualla.com/raf-tern-hill/ Photo credit M J Richardson, CC BY-SA 2.0. The RAF station formally closed in 1976. The technical and administrative buildings, the barracks, the messes, the workshops - all passed to the British Army, who reopened them as Borneo Barracks. The name was later changed to Clive Barracks, after Major-General Robert Clive of I...

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Image: M J Richardson | CC BY-SA 2.0

]]> Wed, 27 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/g/c/q/h/raf-tern-hill-wp/gcqh-raf-tern-hill-closure-and-survival.mp3 0:06 5 full RAF Tern Hill: What You See Now https://qualla.com/raf-tern-hill/ Photo credit CC BY-SA 2.5. Drive past Tern Hill today and you will see a working airfield, with helicopters in the circuit on most flying days, gliders being winch-launched on summer weekends, and the discreet bulk of the Army barracks behind a screen of trees. The three Type-C hangars from 1935 are still ...

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Image: CC BY-SA 2.5

]]> Wed, 27 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/g/c/q/h/raf-tern-hill-wp/gcqh-raf-tern-hill-what-you-see-now.mp3 0:06 6 full