General Background
The Second World War was the first “modern” war in
many ways. One of these was the importance of airpower. East
Lothian was very much in the front line of military aviation.
Airfields like East Fortune had been important locations in the
1914-18 War and after (seeR34)
and the geography of the county made it a fertile area for airfield
development. The more so because East Lothian was in line of flight
for incoming enemy aircraft seeking to penetrate the defences of
the Forth, Rosyth, Edinburgh and the Clyde.
No surprise then that the first enemy air incursion over Britain
the Second World War should come over East Lothian (a
reconnaissance flight over the Forth on 2 October 1939); nor that
the first enemy aircraft to be shot down over Britain (two Junkers
88 bombers off Port Seton by Spitfires from 603 "City of Edinburgh"
Squadron and 602 "City of Glasgow" Squadron on 16 October 1939);
and the first enemy plane shot down intact on British soil should
have been the “Humbie Heinkel” on a photo
reconnaissance mission, shot down over Yester House again by pilots
from 602 and 603 Squadrons on 28 October 1939.
RAF Drem and HMS Nighthawk
The airfield north of Drem village had a series of names. In the
First World War there was a landing ground here known as West
Fenton. After the war it became a training station and was renamed
Gullane. It then fell into disuse and was partly reclaimed as
farmland before opening again as a training establishment in 1939
and shortly after as an operational airfield under the name RAF
Drem. Towards the end of the Second World War, the field passed to
the Admiralty as a naval air station under the name HMS
Nighthawk.
The first operational units based at Drem in 1939 were Auxiliary
Air Force No. 602 (City of Glasgow) Squadron flying Mark 1 Spitfires.
They moved in on 13 October and only three days later the first air
battle took place in the skies above Britain in the shape of an
attack on the afternoon of 16 October by twelve Junkers Ju 88
bombers against ships of the Royal Navy in the Firth of Forth.
Spitfires of Nos. 602 and 603 (City of Edinburgh) Squadrons were
scrambled from Drem and Turnhouse respectively. The Edinburgh
Auxiliaries, got the first kill, off Port Seton, followed ten
minutes later by Flight Lieutenant Pinkerton of 602 Squadron. These
two German aircraft were the first to be shot down over Britain
since the First World War and a message was sent to Drem from the
Commander-in Chief of Fighter Command, Air Marshall Sir Hugh
Dowding, "Well done. First blood to the Auxiliaries!"
During the Battle of Britain in the summer of 1940 a succession
of squadrons was based at Drem, to be rested briefly before moving
back south to take part in the battle. When at Drem squadrons would
operate convoy patrols over the east coast.
Spitfire at Drem
Drem was home to a number of night fighter units. Blenheims of
No. 600 (City of London) Squadron shot down a German bomber during
the bombing of Clydeside in April 1941. Fleet Air Arm 784 Squadron
moved to Drem on 18 October 1942 as a night fighter school for
naval aircrews. An experimental night fighter unit, No. 1692 (Radio
Development) Flight formed at Drem on 5 July 1943 working on trials
of airborne radar sets and electronic jamming equipment. Two of the
then highly secret projects associated with Drem were "Serrate" and
"Moonshine". Serrate was equipment which identified and tracked the
radio direction finding emissions of German aircraft, allowing
night-fighters to home in on them. By the later stages of the War,
the equipment was so effective that German air units would often
simply stay on the ground to avoid being destroyed by allied
aircraft. Moonshine was equipment which picked up and rebroadcast
frequencies from the German Freya coastal radar stations in phase
over one eighth of the Freya frequencies. When carried in
formations of 8 Defiants flying over the coast, the effect was to
create a radar image on the German screens of over a hundred
aircraft, simulating a bomber stream and forcing German fighter
units to take off to intercept the ghost force. A real bomber
stream would then fly through while the Germans were on the ground
refuelling.
One last project based at Drem is still not fully in the public
domain. SCR 584 Training Unit was formed in January 1945 with four
Spitfire Mark Vs. SCR 584 was an American radar system which was
used to combat the V-1 Flying Bombs which were used against the
south coast of England. The role of the Training Unit is not clear
but may have involved using the Spitfires to simulate V-1s for
training SCR 584 operators.
The famous Mosquito
aircraft was also flown from Drem; No. 605 (County of Warwick)
Squadron using the field as a forward aerodrome for Mosquito
intruder flights over Scandanavia.
Drem pioneered what became the standard form of wartime
aerodrome lighting. 602 Squadron found that the flare from the
Spitfire exhaust made the pilot's view on final approach to the
runway very poor indeed at night. They placed dim lamps in
alignment with the curving approach of a normal landing in a
Spitfire to guide pilots in. It was such a success that the
“Drem system” became the basis of all R.A.F. aerodrome
lighting.
On 11 May 1945, Spitfires of No. 603 (City of Edinburgh)
Squadron intercepted three Junkers Ju 52 transport aircraft flying
from Stavanger in Norway and escorted the German aircraft into
Drem. The three German aircraft, painted white, carried a
delegation to arrange the surrender of German forces in Norway. The
German officers were driven in a great variety of staff cars, with
a large motorcycle escort, from Drem to Edinburgh Castle.
After a brief period under the Admiralty as HMS Nighthawk, Drem
was returned to R.A.F. control on 15 March 1946 and decommissioned
soon after. The cache site is about the centre of the northern
perimeter of the airfield. There is now little or nothing on the
ground to show that it was ever here. However, if you visit Fenton
Barns Retail Village (N56 00.031 W002 43.891) you can see a
motley assortment of airfield buildings given a new lease of
life.
Essentially a cache'n'dash. You can pull in just after the
junction with the road from Gullane. Please don't block the house
entrance.