Prestwick was the northerly most UK airfield on the Crimson Route, the northerly, shorter and mainly summer trans atlantic route for lend lease aircraft with the range and equipment to make the trip.
There were four UK airfields that were arrival points for lend lease air traffic, these were RAF St Mawgan, RAF Valley, RAF Nutts Corner and Prestwick. The most used was RAF Valley, due to it’s proximity to the USAAF Eighth and Ninth Air Forces in East Anglia – recieving some 60 – 70 aircraft each day.
Prestwick Airport did manage some 37,000 landings of mainly Lend Lease aircraft, being located closest to RAF Reykjavik in Iceland and RAF Vágar in the Faroe Islands. It was the initial ATC recieving base in United Kingdom for ferried aircraft from the United States. 1403d AAFBU. Began operations in July 1941 as the Eastern Terminus, Atlantic Division, Ferrying Command. In Jan 1943 it became the Head Quarters of Air Transport Command, Eastern European Wing. Prestwick remained as the main terminus of the North Atlantic route throughout the war.
With the begining of the Lend Lease traffic and the later entry of the United States into the war, Prestwick was assigned the station ID of AAF 500 with nearby RAF Ayr being assigned AAF 570 – these were used to obfuscate the actual location of the airfields.
Below is a citation from “Army Air Force Stations – by Captain Barry Anderson USAF’
United States military units assigned in the United Kingdom (UK)during World War II had to avoid any direct connection with specific geographic locations for security reasons. Most United States Army Air Forces (USAAF) units therefore identified their location with a “station number.” Although each USAAF installation in the UK was named–generally after the nearest railway station–official correspondence and unit histories most often employed the station number.
The serious use of Prestwick began in September 1941 when the airfield became part of No 44 Group. Many familiar aircraft types such as Boeing B-17, Consolidated B-24 heavy bombers and Canadian-built de Havilland Mosquitoes all passed through on the transatlantic ferry route operated by the Atlantic Ferry Organisation (ATFERO). Shortly after that No 1425 (Communication) Flight used Consolidated B-24’s and Vickers Wellingtons for the development of a ferry route to the Middle East before being assigned to Lyneham in early 1942. The Air Transport Auxiliary also operated at Prestwick through No 4 Ferry Pilots Pool between 1940 and 1945. All this made the site a very busy airfield with as already stated above some 37,000 aircraft passing through Prestwick by the end of the war.
As mentioned in a previous post, the use of Prestwick Airport for this purpose was promoted by Captain Duncan Macintosh – the relatively fog free local environment was a major plus. But more on that in a future post, as the end of the second world was not as we know the end for Prestwick – unlike so many other USAAF and RAF bases.