NFLA Press Release 4th February 2025
The latest announcement by Nuclear Waste Services making the site of RAF Millom part of the Area of Focus in South Copeland may lead to the airfield and its rich wartime history being lost to a nuclear waste dump.
RAF Millom became operational on 20 January 1941, only days after two Luftwaffe night raids on the locality. Tragically in the first raid, five Millom residents were killed by bombs which missed their intended target, the Millom Ironworks. The base itself came under attack once, when on August 14, 1942, a Junkers 88 bomber strafed the airfield, but caused no damage.
Initially designated as a Bombing and Gunnery School, the airbase was subsequently transformed into an Observer School.
During the war, the following RAF units were stationed at the base: No 1 Anti-Aircraft Co-operation Unit ‘R’ Flight, No 2 Air Observer School, No 2 Bombing and Gunnery School, No 2 (Observers) Advanced Flying Unit, No 14 Air Crew Holding Unit, No 820 Defence Squadron and Station Flight, Millom, whilst 776 and 822 Naval Air Squadrons from the Fleet Air Arm were at one time based there[i].
Aircraft based at RAF Millom included the Boulton Paul Defiant, Hawker Henley, Avro Anson, Airspeed Oxford and Blackburn Botha.
As the base was involved in training aircrew, there were a significant number of crashes, many sadly involving fatalities amongst British, Polish and American airmen[ii][iii].
One of the victims was Flight Lieutenant David Moore Crook, a Battle of Britain ‘Ace’ who had won the Distinguished Flying Cross for his military conduct as one of ‘The Few’. Flt Lt Crook’s DFC citation appeared in the Gazette on 1 November 1940:
“This officer has led his section with coolness and judgment against the enemy on many occasions. He has destroyed six of their aircraft, besides damaging several more”[iv].
Some of the service personnel that were lost are commemorated in a memorial at St Luke’s Church in Haverigg[v].
In locating crashed aircraft and recovering lost aircrews, RAF personnel based at Millom developed operational techniques which were employed by post-war volunteer mountain rescue teams.
Members of the Women’s Auxiliary Air Force based at Millom also engaged in a wide variety of support roles from clerical work to welding.
After the war’s end, the airfield was put under care and maintenance until 1953. In that year, it reopened briefly as the home of the No. 1 Officer Cadet Training Unit, but in September this relocated to RAF Jurby on the Isle of Man. Sadly, two aircrew died in an accident associated with the move[vi].The airfield was then again put in care and maintenance until the 1960s when the army used it for basing various army regiments. HMP Haverigg was established on part of the site in 1967.
In 1992, the RAF Millom Aviation & Military Museum was opened on site by enthusiastic volunteers in buildings leased from the Prison Service. Some volunteers notably participated in a Time Team dig in 2005 to excavate a site in Lancashire where two United States Army Air Force bombers had crashed in November 1944 after a mid-air collision[vii]. The museum operated until September 2010 when financial difficulties and the expiry of the lease led to its closure[viii]. Some exhibits remain on display in the Millom Discovery Centre.
Ulverston author John Dixon is a former prison officer at Haverigg. Mr Dixon set up the RAF Millom Collection in 1993 and was the museum’s curator until 2006. He has published a book on ‘The History of RAF Millom and the Genesis of RAF Mountain Rescue’, which can be purchased from Amazon and bookshops:
https://pixeltweakspublications.com/history-raf-millom-genesis-raf-mountain-rescue/[ix]
Within the entrance to the prison, a memorial in remembrance and sacrifice of aircrews at RAF Millom was erected. This is a propellor from an Avro Anson aircraft. Outside the prison, the café has recently been relaunched as the Haverigg Aircrew Mess ‘celebrating the heritage of what was RAF Millom’.
No longer in the sights of the Luftwaffe, RAF Millom is now instead threatened by the plans of Nuclear Waste Services.The recent announcement that the airbase may be the eventual site of a nuclear waste dump makes remembering that heritage even more poignant.
For more information, please contact NFLA Secretary Richard Outram by email torichard.outram@manchester.gov.uk