World War One Audit of Surviving Remains

Date 12 June 2013

Event ID 961475

Category Descriptive Accounts

Type World War One Audit of Surviving Remains

Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/event/961475

World War One Audit of Surviving Remains

The military airship station and aerodrome at East Fortune was opened in August 1916 as one of a series of bases for airships and aeroplanes to protect shipping in the North Sea from German submarines. It became the most extensive air station in Scotland, with an area of 540 hectares, of which 28 hectares was occupied by buildings. Not all of the remaining land was suitable for aeroplane landings, however, and in 1918 it was noted that some of the station’s area was under cultivation.

The station was dominated by three massive airship sheds. Two, for non-rigid ‘Coastal’ type airships, were built in 1916 and measured 97m by 36m and 24m high. They had wind-screens at both east and west ends. The third airship shed, dwarfing even the first two (at 213m by 55m and 34m high), was built in April 1917 to house the early machines of the new rigid airship fleet. It was set between but slightly to the west of the first two, their bulk acting to screen an airship emerging from east end of the largest shed from cross-winds. It also had a wind-screen at its west end.

The fixed wing aircraft part of East Fortune was opened at the same time as the airship base. Throughout 1916 it was the main Royal Naval Air Service aerodrome in Scotland, being used for training and for flying patrols over the approaches to the Firth of Forth. At the end of 1916 the aerodrome is recorded as having 17 duty pilots, with a smaller number of aircraft, only a handful of which might be operational. The operational strength had risen to about 40 aircraft by the beginning of 1918.

The First World War aerodrome’s technical buildings and all the accommodation for the base were concentrated in the northern half of the site. The airship station was equipped with a full range of supporting structures and facilities: a power station, a gas-producing plant for the airships, workshops for the maintenance of airships and aeroplanes, and extensive accommodation for its personnel. The number of personnel on the airship station was not recorded. The aeroplanes of the base were housed in three large aeroplane hangars at the eastern end of the range of buildings (one 61m by 30.5m and two 36.5m by 30.5m), and a further eight canvas Bessoneaux hangars measuring 20m square.

By the time of the RAF survey of aerodrome stations in 1918 East Fortune had become the base of 201 Training Squadron, the role of which was to train torpedo plane pilots, 40 at a time. The establishment of this part of the station was 261, of whom 36 were women.

The main east coast railway line ran through the station and rail sidings extended as far as the gas-producing plant.

On 2 July 1919 the rigid airship R34, built at the Inchinnan Works near Glasgow, left East Fortune on the first east to west crossing of the Atlantic.

The aerodrome was closed in 1920 but the land was re-acquired during the Second World War, in 1940, as a satellite to Drem, becoming fully operational in 1941.

Many of the buildings along the public road that crossed the site from east to west were re-used after the First World War in what became East Fortune hospital: most can be identified - the lecture hall of the station; the officers’ servants’ quarters; the Warrant Officers’ office; the sick bay and first aid station; a garage; and 13 out of 14 barrack huts and their central catering hall (see NT57NE 106).

Information from HS/RCAHMS World War One Audit Project (GJB) 12 June 2013.