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> RAF Bases
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Alma Park
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Woodhall Spa
Updated: 22 Feb 08
Opened: possibly as early as 1919/20
1947. Y Service Outstation to Cheadle, in Northern Signals Area subordinated to 9 Group.
1 Apr 1949. Transferred from Northern to Central Sigs Area.
1 Nov 1951. No 3 Direction Finding (DF) DF Station renamed No 661 Signals Unit.
31 Oct 1957. MF/DF Site at RAF Mere Branston is reduced to inactive status and parenting and admin control transfered to RAF Digby in No 90 Gp from Cheadle. 661 Signals Unit is disbanded.
12 Feb 1962. RAF Mere Branston reduced to inactive status.
Closed: 11 May 1967. Site of RAF Mere Branston is disposed of; RAF Digby is relieved of parenting.
RAF Mere Branston, also possibly known as Branston Y Station, functioned as an MF/DF (Medium Frequency Direction Finder) site during the 1940s and 1950s. It is not clear whether it performed additional signals functions during or after the war, most notably as a 'Y Station'. Its functioning unit was Number 3 Direction Finding Station, later renamed in 1951 to 661 Signals Unit.
The MF/DF site at RAF Mere Branston was reduced to inactive status in Oct 1957, with parenting and admin control transfered to RAF Digby. This occurred 2 1/2 years after the signals era began at Digby with the arrival and declaration of operational status of 399 Signals Unit.
At least one building remains at the site.
The personnel stationed here may have been billeted at East Mere House.
Reference is made in an article by Terry Hancock, author of Bomber County, on the lincsavsoc website to ’The Searchers’ by Kenneth Macksey, a history of the Y Service, which states that the first RAF Y station was opened at Waddington around 1919/20. Terry postulates that this could refer either to RAF Mere, as RAF Waddington itself was closed from 1919-26, or alternatively that initially the Waddington site was employed in 1919 due to it being the only disused Great War airfield to retain its buildings. Its subsequent re-opening to flying in 1926 would then have necessitated the re-siting of the DF antenna arrays to a more flight ops-friendly location nearby, such as the Mere site.
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