R.A.F. Yatesbury was established during the first world war, where it trained pilots - the so called 20 minuters - before they were dispatched to the front.
![]()
There were two camps either side of the minor road from the A4 to the village itself. The West camp comprised the Officers and Men’s quarters with the usual facilities and had three large hangars. The East camp was adjacent to the (now) A4 and again had hangars and workshops. The airfield opened in November 1916 with No. 55 Reserve Squadron arriving from Filton, equipped with the Avro 504A and the Scout D.
![]()
After the Great War, Yatesbury became a Radio training school where the theory of wireless and Morse code were taught on the ground and Dominie and Proctor aircraft were used for the aerial training.
![]()
Over 50,000 men successfully passed out from 1939 to 1945 when the war ended. In 1942 a heavily guarded compound was built at the Eastern end of the camp to teach the new top-secret radar. This was originally known as No.9 RDF School but was quickly changed to No.9 Radio School, presumably to confuse the Germans. Over 19,000 men and women were trained there.
At the end of the war training largely ceased, (it was used for square bashing for a while), but with the start of the Cold War the camp got busy again, mainly training radar operators, mechanics and fitters. Large numbers of personnel passed through because of the high proportion of National Servicemen in the R.A.F. With the end of National Service in 1961 demand reduced, so in 1965 the camp finally closed, making it one of the oldest air stations in constant use in the world.
![]()
These are all that remain of the four huge bay windows, that ran along the SE side of the Officers Mess. They can clearly be seen in the lower right of the photo at the top of this page.
Famous people that served at R.A.F. Yatesbury include:-
Wing Commander Guy Gibson VC DSO DFC, Sir Francis Chichester KBE, Sir Patrick Moore CBE,
Charles Hawtrey (of Carry On Film fame) and Sir Arthur C. Clarke who was a radar instructor.