The story of RAF East Fortune stretches back before the foundation of the Royal Air Force in 1918. Located about 30km (20 miles) east of Edinburgh, it was originally established by the Royal Naval Air Service in 1915. In these early years, it was primarily associated with fighter planes and airships, and in July 1919 it famously witnessed the launch of the first-ever return flight across the Atlantic, in which the British airship R.34 (measuring 634ft/193m long, it was nicknamed ‘Tiny’) travelled to Mineola on Long Island, New York, in just over 108 hours. In the interwar years, the site served as a tuberculosis sanatorium, but in 1940 it was requisitioned, reopened, and expanded for military use, initially training night fighters and later anti-shipping activity by RAF Coastal Command. The airfield was allocated to the United States Air Force during the Cold War, but it then returned mainly to medical purposes, other than a brief episode in 1961 when it hosted both civilian and military flights while nearby Turnhouse Aerodrome (now Edinburgh Airport) was undergoing building works. The site gained a new lease of life in 1975, when it opened to the public as a museum. Today, the National Museum of Flight occupies the area of the airfield’s Technical Site, incorporating a number of historic buildings and runways. Part of National Museums Scotland, its displays trace the history of aviation from the First World War to the present day – and, complementing this wide perspective, activities linked to this latest phase of the site’s use have given illuminating insights into its own aerial past.
In 1987-1988, works to reclad Hangar 4 unearthed artefacts including RAF-stamped crockery and various glass bottles. These were stored at the site’s archive, and over the past three years they have been joined by many more objects recovered and documented by museum staff during surveys of areas where a lack of grass coverage allows good visibility of the ground. These non-systematic but targeted investigations have examined stripes of land, 30cm to 90cm (1-3ft) in width, around most of the complex’s buildings, as well as other zones where the original ground surface is preserved, such as in and around the Bulk Petrol Installations. Each of these areas has been inspected several times, using a selective strategy of collecting only highly diagnostic finds, and we estimate that around 500m2 out of the site’s total 13ha (32 acres) has been surveyed to-date. Here we will examine the earlier excavated artefacts and more-recent surface finds, discussing how they enrich our knowledge of this airfield and the personnel based there during the Second World War.
Populating the past
Thousands of personnel from different Allied countries served at East Fortune or passed through the airfield on training courses, and many left personal items behind for us to find. Tangible traces of these individuals include a metal military water bottle, uniform and shirt buttons, buckles, and coins including a George V shilling minted between 1927 and 1936 and a George VI florin dated 1942. There was a more intimate artefact in the form of a small, cross-shaped pendant, while a tantalising echo of a specific person came from the metal clip from a pair of braces bearing the engraved initials of its owner (W.H.B.) and the year 1938. Such finds help us to flesh out the type of service personnel stationed at RAF East Fortune, as engraved brace clips most often belonged to RAF officers. Other lettering seen on the backs of shirt buttons represented various manufacturer marks, including ‘CHENEY B’HAM’ between two crosses; ‘SHIRLEY Ltd B’HAM’; ‘W.H.H(ASELER) B’HAM’; ‘HILLS W.C.L.’; and ‘FIRMIN LONDON’.
