RAF Cardington Camp
Hello, welcome to the RAF Cardington history website. The station just south of Bedford town was in operation from 1936 to 2000 and although primarily a recruitment centre was home to a large array of units. Balloon Units were stationed here, a direct legacy from the early airship programme begun at Cardington in WW1.
This month sees the addition of four new pages all relating to the years 1949-1954. Unusually some supporting documents for these years had been attached to the daily station ORBs (Operations Record Books) and reveal some very interesting snippets. There are two new pages in the RAF Cardington 1945-1960 section the first relating to The Great Flood 1953 in which station personnel played a part in a clean-up operation and the second new page shows the procedures and processes each new candidate was put through when enlisting in 1954. A new page in the Balloon Unit Section has been created for the Army Balloon Command based at the station from 1950-1955.
The final new page is entitled “Czech Exiles” and can be found in the Topic Section. This group of men had been below the radar but luckily the documents attached to the ORBs allow their story to be told. And what a sad story it is. Read about the poor treatment meted out to some of the Czech pilots on their return to Czechoslovakia after the end of WW2 and the reasons why some came back to this country. If anyone can shed any light as to what happened to these men after they returned please get in touch. It would be nice to think that happier times awaited them here.
Jane Harvey. October 2019.
A A B Thomson - holder of The Military Cross & Bar. The first Station Commander of RAF Cardington 1936
A March 1940 station concert programme.
A 1943 RAF Cardington cricket team. Sport of any kind was high on the agenda for staff in their spare time.
Renamed MU217 RAF Cardington in 1955 - the Gas Plant supplied RAF depots throughout the world.
Grp Capt A R Arnold DSO, DFC - the longest serving Station Commander from Nov 1939- Mar 1945
No 102 Dispersal Unit was set up to 'demob' the thousands of RAF men returning home.
The two magnificent sheds still standing proud. Home to airships from 1916-1930 and put to numerous uses by the RAF in later years.
A Memorial Stone for RAF Cardington.
On the morning of Saturday 18th May 2019 a memorial stone to RAF Cardington was unveiled. Special guests assembled to witness the unveiling of the stone located at the front of the Shorts Building (known as Station HQ in the RAF years).
The memorial was designed and totally financed by Bellway Homes who are the major developers of the former station which is now a housing development. Responding to a request to provide a lasting memorial to the station they agreed without hesitation to support the initiative. Permission was obtained from the MOD to use the RAF emblem on the memorial and the process began.
We were specially honoured to welcome the Lousada family to the memorial. From 1956 to 1959 Group Captain Lousada was Station Commander at Cardington and on July 27th 1959 he accepted the Freedom of Bedford on behalf of the station from the Lord Mayor of Bedford. We were delighted that his youngest son Michael (shown above right) had agreed to unveil the stone.
Thank you Bellway Homes!!
A huge thank you is due to Bellway Homes for supporting and financing this project right from the beginning. I think you will agree they have done a good job. Certainly without them this memorial would not have happened. Thank you from Jane Harvey.
For more images of the day go to the Memorial Unveiling Page found in the Topic Section.
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