Qualla: RAF Matlaske

RAF Matlaske: Introduction

Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit stavros1, CC BY 3.0. Five Dornier bombers came in low over the Norfolk fields one autumn morning in 1940 and strafed a brand-new aerodrome at Matlaske. The airfield had been operational for days. The Spitfires of 72 Squadron, hurried over from Coltishall after the Luftwaffe bombed that base two days earlier, were caught on the ground. Parked aircraft burned, and the dispersal areas took casualties. RAF Matlaske was a satellite station, the kind of grass strip the Air Ministry threw down across East Anglia to scatter fighter squadrons that needed to be somewhere other than the obvious target. From late 1940 through the end of the war in Europe, the field hosted a procession of squadrons that reads like a roll-call of the British single-engined fighter.

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Image: stavros1 | CC BY 3.0

RAF Matlaske: A Field Becomes a Station

Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit stavros1, CC BY 3.0. There had been a small aerodrome at Matlaske before the war, the details of which have largely been forgotten. In August 1939, with conflict closing in, the Air Ministry approved the site for requisition. Construction crews moved in during the summer of 1940 and laid out a satell...

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Image: stavros1 | CC BY 3.0

RAF Matlaske: Spitfires, Hurricanes, Typhoons

Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit stavros1, CC BY 3.0. The squadron list at Matlaske runs to twenty units across five years. 19 Squadron flew Spitfire IIs and Vbs. 56 Squadron brought the heavy, troublesome Hawker Typhoon Mark Ib, which matured here into a useful ground-attack aircraft and was later replaced by the Tempest V. 65, 122...

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Image: stavros1 | CC BY 3.0

RAF Matlaske: The Whirlwinds of 137

Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit stavros1, CC BY 3.0. Among all those Spitfires and Typhoons, one squadron at Matlaske stood out: 137 Squadron flew the Westland Whirlwind, one of the rarest and most striking British fighters of the war. Twin-engined, low-set, with four 20mm cannons clustered in its nose, the Whirlwind was fast at lo...

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Image: stavros1 | CC BY 3.0

RAF Matlaske: Air-Sea Rescue Over the North Sea

Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit stavros1, CC BY 3.0. Not every flight from Matlaske ended in combat. The Air Sea Rescue Flight based here in 1941, which grew into 278 Squadron RAF, flew Westland Lysanders and Supermarine Walrus amphibians out over the North Sea looking for downed crews bobbing in dinghies among the swells. The Lysa...

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Image: stavros1 | CC BY 3.0

RAF Matlaske: After the War

Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit stavros1, CC BY 3.0. RAF Matlaske closed in 1945, its grass runway returning to farmland with quiet inevitability. There was no last great air battle, no parade. Most of the buildings were dismantled or repurposed. The control tower, a recurring feature of British wartime airfield archaeology, surviv...

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Image: stavros1 | CC BY 3.0