I put this together some years ago, thought some might like to read it Nutts Corner was built in record time, the Airfield Board had selected the site in the summer of 1940 and within months the War Cabinet had accorded the very highest priority to aerodrome construction in Northern Ireland. No.120 Squadron were reformed on 2 June 1941 at the same time that the station was opened, and it was still under construction when personnel started to arrive to join the squadron. It made an impression on those who had to live and work there. One was Sergeant Pilot Harry Wilson who recalls: - “When I was posted to Nutts Corner, I travelled on the boat to Ireland with Sgt. Corkran, an Aussie, and eventually arrived at Crumlin Station. We waited around at Crumlin until we found and RAF lorry which was going to Aldergrove. The lorry gave us a lift to Aldergrove and from there we finally made it to Nutts Corner. “I was shaken rigid when we did get to Nutts Corner. The Nissen huts were dispersed and none of them even had an electric light then. There were no ablution facilities and we had to draw water from a well in order to wash and shave. We were taken, once a week, to Aldergrove for a bath. I could only compare it with Flying Training School in Rhodesia, where I was a member of the second course and – well – there was just no comparison! However, as time went by, things improved and, there was a small farm nearby, we were able to buy eggs, milk, butter and bread and we used to settle down to scrambled eggs on toast, cooked on a stove in the hut”. Another newcomer was Sgt. Wop/Ag. Eddie Cheek: - “In June 1941, I was posted to 120 (General Reconnaissance) Squadron at Nutts Corner, In Northern Ireland; of course nobody had heard of the place. After crossing the Irish Sea on the Stranraer / Larne ferry, I eventually arrived at Nutts Corner. After reporting to the Orderly Room I found I was to fly on Liberator aircraft, whatever they were. I asked for directions to the Mess, and was more than surprised to be told that it was one mile up the road, with another walk of half a mile to the accommodation site. My first impressions on Nutts Corner were, though it was not the end of the world, if the Good Lord decided to give the world an enema, here was the place. “Living conditions could hardly be described as comfortable on this vast dispersed station. We were housed in those semi – circle monstrosities called Nissen huts, with just one eighth of an inch of corrugated metal separating us from the far from benign Irish elements. We used to say that if one could see Lough Neagh, then the rain was approaching, if one couldn't’t, then it was raining. Whether this form of accommodation was dictated by financial stringency, or the urgency of war, or was a deliberate attempt by their Airships to toughen us up, I do not know, but if it was the latter, I have to say that the most hardened criminals enjoyed far better accommodation as guests of His Majesty. A small coal burning stoves, with long narrow chimneys protruding through the roof, heated the rooms. One would sit in the room, in front of the fire. Boiling in front and freezing behind. Our reveries were often disturbed by what was considered to be a harmless prank. A ‘friend’ would climb onto the roof and drop the filling of a Very cartridge down the chimney. The effect was both frightening and fantastic: the cartridge burned fiercely, building up sufficient pressure for the small inserts on top of the stove to be hurled up to the ceiling, and the room would be suffused with an intense light, the colour of which depended upon the cartridge selected. Although ones heart soon returned to its normal pace, it took some minutes before normal sight returned, by which time ones ‘friend’ had made a leisurely escape.” For the WAAF’s stationed at Nutts Corner, matters were even worse. Mrs Jean Davis recalls: - “We were billeted in the local Orange Hall in Dundrod, which meant about fifty of us in this large cavern, lit by candles most of the time. We had to break the ice at the village pump to wash, and our idea of bliss was to hitchhike into Belfast and have a ‘Chance Bath’ at the Grand Central Hotel for one shilling and sixpence. After which we treated ourselves to tea there, because luxury was being able to put the milk in last, if we wanted to, instead of having ‘cha’ ladled out of buckets – one with and one without sugar, in the mess. “The catering arrangements were pretty bush – my abiding memory is of the charming habit of those who delivered the food to the cooks, dumping first the paraffin and then the sack of potatoes on the door mat, so that everything in retrospect seems to have been flavoured with paraffin. I also seem to remember a stern lecture from our WAAF Admin Officer in reply to complaints, which, in effect, informed us that there was, after all, A WAR ON. “We were there during the early snowy winter nights, and we used to pool all our bedclothes and ‘biscuits’ and make a sort of communal bed for two or three – which was frowned on by authority as being immoral, but as we were only determined on not dying of the cold during the nights, and being huddled together gave us a united front against the rats that danced over us in the night, for once we took little notice of our superiors”. An experienced pilot joining the squadron was Rae Walton: - “In June 1941, three crews, namely those of Brian Bannister, Peter Cundy and myself, had completed a full tour of operations with No. 53 Squadron and were posted to Nutts Corner to form with about six other crews, the re-constituted 120 Squadron, flying Liberators. These were new to the RAF and we spent some months learning to fly them and also learning the anti-submarine and convoy protection work which up to then was being done by Sunderland and Catalina flying boats. “Following re-formation, we visited and gleaned knowledge from Sunderland, Catalina and Hudson squadrons doing Atlantic protection work. We formed at Nutts Corner a small navigation school; and spent long hours there, largely teaching ourselves by taking advantage of those who had special training skills. “At Nutts Corner we lived in wooden huts dispersed about a mile from the runways, on gently rising ground to the east. The runways were quite long for those days but the aircraft were always fully loaded and required every inch for take-off”. One officer on attachment to the squadron remarked that the 1.600 yd runways available were marginal with a fully loaded Liberator and aircraft were often pulled off the ground at 125 mph with 50 yds to spare. To service a 110 ft wingspan aircraft in a 90 ft hanger meant that it had to be lifted on trolleys and dragged in sideways. He also commented that the aerodrome at Nutts Corner was built on what is partially a bog, and as the runways are of tarmac they give trouble. If an aircraft leaves the runway it gets bogged down at once. The dispersal parks have concrete taxi tracks and these had been covered with tar and stone chippings for camouflage. The stones came loose and damage to propellers results. The hard standings were excellently arranged, being a series of circles round which an aircraft can easily be taxied and are far superior to a narrow track terminating in a concrete square on which it would be impossible to turn a big aircraft. 59 Squadron was called on to provide three crews for the new 120 Squadron – among the volunteers was Flt. Lt. David Evans: - “We all arrived at Nutts Corner early in June 1941 and within days decided that whoever called this new and only partly finished airfield ‘Nutts Corner’ knew what they were about. .Living conditions were initially liable to be fairly primitive, especially for those who, like ourselves, had been living in relative luxurious accommodation, superbly designed and built, as was that at Thorney Island in the heyday of the mid-1930’s expansion of the Royal Air Force. Leave and other facilities or amenities were more accessible in the south of England – enemy bombing notwithstanding. The new wartime airfields were hutted and dispersed to various sites in order to reduce potential enemy bomb damage, even though in the case of Nutts Corner, they were beyond the radius of action of contemporary enemy bombers. Thus we had to walk about a mile along a country road from where we slept to the ‘domestic site’ where we ate, relaxed or bathed. The airfield offices and aircraft operating areas – including already, I think, at least one hanger – were a mile further on still. There were also dispersal points off the perimeter track where aircraft were parked. As RAF transport was in short supply, even bicycles were apparently unobtainable, and we had not been allowed to ship our own cars across the Irish Sea, Shanks Pony was the normal and tedious method of getting from A to B. It all wasted time and energy – we were relatively young and impatient, no doubt, that not enough was being done – but I’m sure that the Station Commander – Group Captain Pritchett – and 120 CO – Wing Commander Cummings, who I think had a DFC and used to fly for Imperial Airways – tried their best to alleviate our discomforts.
Thanks Peter for your thread on Nutts Corner, very interesting, i live not far from Aldergrove and Nutts Corner and like you have a interest in 120 sqn and coastal command, i always keep tabs on your thread to see if there is any N.Ireland content, thanks again for sharing this with us, keep up the good work.
