RAF Marham

RAF Marham
Characteristics
ICAO code	EGYM
IATA code	KNF
Coordinates	52 ° 38 '54 "  N , 0 ° 33' 2"  E Coordinates: 52 ° 38 '54 "  N , 0 ° 33' 2"  E
Height above MSL	23 m (75  ft )
Transport links
Distance from the city center	25 km southeast of King's Lynn
Street	7 km to the
Basic data
opening	August 1916
operator	Royal Air Force
Runways
06/24	2786 m × 61 m asphalt
01/19	1855 m × 91 m concrete

The Royal Air Force Station Marham , shortly RAF Marham , is a military airfield of the British Royal Air Force southeast of King's Lynn in the county of Norfolk , East Anglia . The base is one of the largest in the RAF and base of the Lightning II with a time of season (Engl. Squadron ). In addition to RAF soldiers, the Lightning II armed force also recruits from Royal Navy (RN) personnel .

history

RAF Marham was opened in the summer of 1916, a few weeks after the Battle of the Skagerrak , in the middle of the First World War, not far from the North Sea coast as a night landing site. In addition to night flight training, the place was used in particular for fighter planes for home defense. In addition to the 51st Squadron, which is still active today (now stationed in RAF Waddington ), the 190th , 191st and 192nd Squadron were temporarily located here . The Aerodrome was closed a year after the end of the war.

In 1935, when the new air force began to be exposed in Germany in the spring , work began on a new, modern airfield, which was reopened as a bomber base on April 1, 1937. In the pre-war years, Marham became home to the 38th and 115th Squadron , which were equipped with twin-engined Wellington bombers at the outbreak of World War II .

In April 1941, the two Marhamers Wellington squadrons, the 38th had been replaced by the 218th in November 1940 , flew some air raids on the German battleships Scharnhorst and Gneisenau lying in Brest . The following winter, the 218th Squadron was the first RAF squadron to receive four-engine bombers, in this case of the Stirling type and at the end of May 1942, both squadrons were involved in the first 1000 bomber attack , the destination was Cologne . Later in the year the station became a base for light mosquito bombers. School relays were initially equipped with this, but in the spring of 1943 Marham became a base for the Pathfinder Force . Due to the need for repair work on the airfield, RAF Marham was closed for the time being in March 1944 and was then not reopened before the end of the war.

From 1946 onwards, Marham was primarily used as a bomber base again, with heavy Lancasters and Lincolns joining the mosquitos . In addition to the RAF a number of used Bombardment Groups of USAFE 1950 Marham between March 1948 and March, these were with B-29 and B-50 equipped. From then on, the RAF also used these "super fortresses" as Washington B1.

In January 1956, the 214th Squadron with Valiant B1 was set up, with which the jet age began for the heavy bombers of the RAF. After two more squadrons of these nuclear-armed bombers, the 148th and 207th had been deployed in the middle of the year (the 49th was added later), the 214th Squadron began attempts to use them as tanker aircraft in 1957. From spring 1962, the squadron's job was ultimately to refuel. Marhamer units were responsible for air refueling until the early 1980s. Due to material fatigue, all Valiants were taken out of service early in 1965 and all four squadrons were disbanded.

The first Victor arrived as a replacement in the same year . Temporarily, some of the specimens were still used as bombers, but from July 1966 the role of the now three squadrons ( 55th , 57th and 214th ) was exclusively aerial refueling. In addition, there were school units for air refueling. In addition, RAF Marham became home to the Canberra in early 1976 , first used as a target tug with the 100th Squadron , followed by the retraining unit.

With a view to the stationing of the new multi-purpose combat aircraft of the Tornado type, planned from 1982 onwards, the Victor fleet was reduced in early 1977 with the dissolution of the 214th Squadron and the construction of Hardened Aircraft Shelters was initiated. In the spring of 1982, the 100th Squadron moved to RAF Wyton before the remaining Victor tankers played an important role in the Falklands War at the end of their service life. For this purpose, part of the fleet was temporarily (until the beginning of 1984) relocated to Wideawake in the South Atlantic.

The first two Tornado GR1 squadrons in Marham were the 27th and 617th Squadron (the latter the famous " Dambuster " squadron), which initially used the station in parallel with the two Victor squadrons. In mid-1986, the Victor fleet was again reduced and the 57th Squadron decommissioned, as the use of more powerful types of passenger aircraft in the air refueling role had begun in parallel in RAF Brize Norton .

In 1990/1991 elements of all three squadrons were used in the Gulf War and due to the parallel East-West conflict and the associated downsizing of RAF Germany , the 2nd Squadron moved from RAF Laarbruch at the end of 2001 with their Tornado GR1A - Scout to Marham.

On April 1, 1993, RAF Marham hosted the official 75th anniversary celebration of the Royal Air Force, and changes continued over the next 12 months. The 27th Squadron was administratively replaced by the 12th , before moving to RAF Lossiemouth in Scotland in early 1994 . In September the 55th Squadron was deactivated and its aircraft decommissioned. In the almost three decades of Victor era that ended, Victors of the series BK1A, B1, B1A, K1 and K2 were used, at the same time the stationing of four-engine or four-engine aircraft ended after more than 50 years. Just two months later, another Canberra squadron , the 39th Squadron (a photo reconnaissance unit), was relocated to Marham. In February 1994 the 13th Squadron from RAF Honington was added, which was also equipped with Tornado GR1A. As compensation, the "Dambusters" were also relocated to Scotland.

From then on, the main role of all Marham forces was aerial reconnaissance. The Marham Reconnaissance Squadron was used in various operations and conflicts in Iraq and over Bosnia in the following years . Due to the complete withdrawal of the RAF from Germany, the tornadoes of the 9th and 31st Squadron from RAF Brüggen strengthened the squadron in Marham, whose tasks were expanded as a result.

The Canberras were decommissioned in the middle of the decade. RAF Marham was the last location of this aircraft type, which was in RAF service for over five decades, with the B2, T4, PR9, E15 and T17 series being stationed in Marham.

The No. The 138 Expeditionary Air Wing (EAW) was deployed in Marham on April 1, 2006. None of the flying squadrons belong to the EAW. The base commander is also the EAW commander.

After the Canberra was decommissioned, the base was home to a pure tornado squadron, initially consisting of four squadrons, whose aircraft had been modified into the GR4 and GR4A series in those years. As a result of a further downsizing of the RAF in the early 2010s, the 13th Squadron was decommissioned in spring 2011. At the same time, for the first time ever after 1945, air combat missions were carried out from Marham directly from British soil, the target being Libya . Further tornado missions took place from 2009 to 2014 over Afghanistan and 2014 in Iraq and Nigeria . This postponed the reduction in the tornado force previously planned for 2015 by one season. However, as the 2nd Squadron was reorganized with the Typhoon in January 2015 as planned , the previous 2nd Squadron became the 12th Squadron . This was finally decommissioned as a tornado unit in March 2018. The tornado era officially ended two years later on March 14, 2019 with the retirement of the last two squadrons, the 9th (B) and 31st Squadron .

Marham was designated in 2013 as the future base of the British Lightning II armed forces, which is operated analogously to the former Joint Force Harrier based in Cottesmore and Wittering with personnel from the RAF and Royal Navy . As a result, the base was extensively modernized and expanded from 2016 to 2018. For this purpose, an integrated training center (inaugurated by Queen Elizabeth II at the beginning of 2018), a logistics operations center and a building for maintenance and remaining work were created. In addition, a new 2.74 km runway was built and a long unused second runway was also restored by May 2018. In the open space in the center, three concrete pads were created for vertical landings and a short landing strip was also added for the practice of carrier landings.

The first F-35B of the 617th Squadron , which had been reactivated shortly before in Beaumont , arrived in Marham in early June 2018. A good year later, the units used for retraining followed, which have since been operated by the 207th (reserve) squadron.

Todays use

The base currently (2019) houses two RAF flying squadrons:

• 207th (R) Squadron , Lightning II Retraining Unit, since 2019
• 617th Squadron , Lightning II Squadron , since 2018

future

An F-35B retraining unit, the 207th Squadron , is scheduled to deploy in Marham in 2019. The second task force will be the 809th Naval Air Squadron from 2023 . The 17th Squadron was the first British Lightning II association that entered service at Edwards Air Force Base at the end of 2014 and is still stationed there.

Others

RAF Marham is the last base in Norfolk used by the RAF as a flying station . The penultimate airfield was RAF Coltishall further east near Norwich, which was closed at the end of 2006.

RAF Coltishall

The Royal Air Force Station Coltishall , RAF Coltishall for short (IATA: CLF, ICAO: EGYC) existed from 1938 to 2006.

During the Second World War, from May 1940, it was a base for the RAF Fighter Command , where hurricanes were located . One of the pilots stationed here was Douglas Bader . Later night fighters lay here and the Fleet Air Arm also used the base. The Spitfire of the 124th Squadron lying here in the spring of 1945 served to combat German V2 launching ramps in the occupied Netherlands.

During the Cold War, the most diverse types of fighter aircraft were stationed here, such as Mosquito , Javelin and Lightning , the latter until 1974. Coltishall was also the first base of the Phantom FGR.2 from July 1968 to 1974 .

Coltishall then became a fighter-bomber base for the Jaguar in August 1974 . From 1990 onwards, these were also used in various operations in the Middle East. With the decision of his successor not to station the Eurofighter Typhoon in Coltishall, the base became superfluous. The last Jaguar squadron left Coltishall on April 1, 2006 and the station was closed on November 30 of the same year.

See also

• List of Royal Air Force bases

Web links

Commons : RAF Marham  - collection of images, videos and audio files

• official homepage

Individual evidence

1. ↑ 12 (B) Squadron Bids Farewell to the Tornado GR4, RAF News, March 13, 2017
2. ↑ Tornado Squadrons disbandment parade RAF News, 14 March 2019
3. ↑ Her Majesty the Queen visits RAF Marham ( Memento of the original from June 12, 2018 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link has been inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , RAF homepage, February 2, 2018 
4. ↑ UK announces F-35 infrastructure contracts, Janes, April 7, 2016 ( Memento of the original from April 8, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. 
5. ↑ F-35 jets use new landing pads at RAF Marham for the first time, UK Defense Journal, July 27, 2018
6. ↑ First UK F-35Bs arrive in-country, Janes, June 6, 2018
7. ^ Second F-35 Lightning squadron arrives in Norfolk, Eastern Daily Press, July 17, 2019