RAF Longbenton

The buildings of RAF Longbenton once stood on the former farmland of Benton, beside Front Street and Coach Lane. During the war they formed the headquarters and support base for a network of barrage balloon sites defending Tyneside and Teesside.

The station was not primarily an airfield from which aircraft flew. Its most important wartime function lay in the organisation, supply and operation of barrage balloon defences. The site remained in RAF use after the war, eventually becoming associated with an auxiliary fighter-control unit before the station closed in 1957.

The station’s beginnings

Preparations began before war was declared. The selection of Longbenton for a balloon centre was announced in February 1939, and No. 15 Balloon Centre was formally established on 5 June that year. At first, the organisation operated from 44 New Bridge Street in Newcastle upon Tyne. Its move to Longbenton followed in August, as the new station was brought into use.[1][2]

The station was laid out on land associated with Benton Farm. Contemporary and later descriptions place it immediately east of Coach Lane and south of Front Street. Construction included balloon sheds, accommodation, stores, medical facilities and defensive works. It was a working military establishment built to support a dispersed network of crews rather than a single balloon position.[3]

Defending the Tyne and Tees

No. 15 Balloon Centre was responsible for Nos. 936, 937 and 938 Balloon Squadrons. Broadly, Nos. 936 and 937 were concerned with the Tyne barrage, while No. 938’s duties included the Tees. Their crews operated at sites across the region, often some distance from the Longbenton base.[1][4]

The Tyne and Tees supported shipbuilding, docks, engineering works and other industries of national importance. Barrage balloons were part of the measures intended to protect these targets from low-flying enemy aircraft. The balloon’s steel tether could present a serious hazard to an aircraft approaching at low altitude, encouraging attackers to fly higher and making some forms of attack more difficult.

Operating the barrage demanded more than simply raising a balloon. Crews worked with winches and cables, maintained equipment, monitored weather conditions and moved between sites as required. The balloon centre provided the organisation and support behind that work.

Records for No. 938 Squadron help show how widely the units operated. In August 1939, its crews travelled to positions at North Shields and Tynemouth; by the end of that month the squadron had established headquarters at Billingham. These were regional defences directed and supported through the Longbenton centre, not balloons confined to the station itself.[5]

The station and its buildings

The surviving site plan and historic environment records provide evidence of the station’s physical layout. The centre included large balloon sheds, huts and service buildings, together with air-raid shelters and slit trenches. The Tyne and Wear Historic Environment Record also notes four balloon-mooring positions and a group of pillboxes associated with the former military site.[3]

The position of the station can still be understood from the surrounding roads. Front Street lay along its northern side, with Coach Lane to the west. Today much of the land has been redeveloped, making the old plans and aerial photographs especially valuable in understanding what stood here.

RAF aerial survey photographs taken on 16 March 1945 and 27 February 1946 are cited by the local historic environment record. These provide important leads for a more detailed reconstruction of the wartime site.[3]

The air raid of 5–6 May 1941

RAF Longbenton itself came under attack during a German air raid on the night of 5–6 May 1941. Bombs fell in the Benton area, including on or near the station. Several service personnel were injured, and two men serving with No. 938 Balloon Squadron died as a result of the raid.[6][7]

Wilson was killed during the attack. Matthews was taken to Stannington Hospital with serious wounds and died the following day. Accounts also record other personnel wounded or suffering from shock. The incident is a reminder that the men responsible for the balloon defences were themselves exposed to enemy bombing.[6]

From balloon centre to maintenance site

As the character of the war changed, so did the RAF’s balloon organisation. No. 15 Balloon Centre was disbanded on 1 March 1945, but RAF use of Longbenton continued.[1]

Post-war RAF records identify Longbenton as a sub-site used by No. 14 Maintenance Unit and No. 261 Maintenance Unit. Maintenance Units were part of the RAF’s equipment and supply organisation, a very different role from operating the balloon barrage. The surviving administrative returns establish those connections, although they do not by themselves describe every activity carried out on the Longbenton site.[8]

The station was therefore more than a short-lived wartime balloon base. Its buildings and land remained useful to the RAF during the years after 1945, even as the organisation based there changed.

Fighter control and the Auxiliary Air Force

Another part of Longbenton’s post-war history was its association with the Royal Auxiliary Air Force. No. 3508 (County of Northumberland) Air Defence Unit was established at RAF Longbenton on 22 September 1948. It was redesignated No. 3508 (County of Northumberland) Fighter Control Unit on 29 September, just a week later.[10]

Fighter-control organisations were concerned with the reporting, direction and coordination needed for Britain’s air defences. No. 3508’s history places it within the wider post-war system of control groups and ground-controlled interception arrangements. This provides a much clearer explanation of Longbenton’s reported fighter-control connection than the brief references found in some local histories.

By 1951 the unit was affiliated with the Type 76 Mobile GCI and Northstead GCI arrangements. It transferred to No. 13 Group in 1955, before moving from Longbenton to its town headquarters at 3 Windsor Terrace, Jesmond, on 1 September 1957.[10]

Closure and what remains

RAF Longbenton ceased to be an RAF station on 1 September 1957, when it was disbanded and transferred to the Air Ministry’s Director-General of Works. This date is supported by both the station chronology and the RAF Heraldry Trust.[2][9]

The site did not disappear overnight. Buildings survived long after the RAF station closed, but subsequent redevelopment changed the area considerably. Historic England holds a record of an interior photograph of a former balloon shed, taken by Roger Thomas on 18 May 1993. The image is not displayed in its public online catalogue, but the catalogue entry establishes that the structure was being documented at that time.[11]

The later history of the land can be traced through planning records, aerial photographs and the memories of local residents. Former RAF buildings, the street pattern and the station’s boundaries remain important subjects for the developing archive.

There was also continuity of a different kind. 2344 (Longbenton) Squadron of the Air Training Corps began in 1956, while the RAF station was still open. Its history belongs to a separate chapter, but the overlap helps explain why the RAF past remains so closely associated with the squadron today.