RAF Madley
Royal Air Force Madley or more simply RAF Madley is a former Royal [Air Force station] situated south west of Hereford in Herefordshire, England. The station was in use during the Second World War as a training base and was located between the villages of Kingstone and Madley.
History
The site opened as a training centre for aircrew and ground wireless operators on 27 August 1941. In 1941, No. 4 Signals School RAF was stated up at the base. The school was disbanded and renamed as No. 4 Radio School RAF in January 1943.In 1943, the grass airfield was reinforced with Sommerfeld Tracking and the centre's population rose to about 5,000. Also in 1943, RAF Madley became a base for one of ten Royal Air Force RAF [Mountain Rescue Service|Mountain Rescue Teams] that had been set up to rescue lost aircrew. The site was visited in 1944 prior to D-Day by US General George S. Patton, and later by Rudolf Hess on his way to the Nuremberg Trials in 1946.
The station was not bombed by the Luftwaffe, however, as with other bases, crashes of friendly aircraft were commonplace. On Christmas Day 1944, a Liberator crashed in the station environs which precipitated the usual search for the crew. This had proved fruitless as the crew had baled out over Belgium as they assumed the heavily flak-damaged aircraft was about to crash. However, the aircraft somehow made it all the way to Madley without its aircrew.
The comedian and actor Eric Sykes was a radio operator at RAF Madley during the Second World War.
Units posted here
- No. 4 Radio School
- No. 4 Signals School
- No. 8 Anti-Aircraft Co-operation Unit RAF
- No. 25 Maintenance Unit RAF
- No. [26 Squadron RAF] detachment during 1942 using the North American Mustang I
- No. 50 Gliding School RAF
Current use
On 1 August 2019 a Piper Arrow single engined aeroplane registered G-DIZY suffered an engine failure and made an emergency landing on the grass south of the runway intersections. It was later dismantled and removed by road for repair.