At the outset of the Great War, the Isle of Thanet was equipped with a small and precarious landing strip for aircraft at Westgate, above the cliffs at the foot of the sea where a seaplane had been based at the end of the promenade.

The landing grounds atop the cliff soon became the scene of several accidents, with at least one plane seen to fail to stop before the end of the cliffs and tumble into the sea, which for the fortunate pilot had been on its inward tide.

In the winter of 1915-[916 these early aircraft first began to use the open farmlands at Manston as a site for emergency landings. Thus was soon established the Admiralty Aerodrome at Manston. It was not long after this that the training school, set up originally to instruct pilots in the use of the new Handley Page bombers, was established, and so by the close of 1916 there were already two distinct units stationed at Manston, the Operational War Flight Command and the Handley Page Training School.

Its location near the Kent coast gave Manston some advantages over the other previously established aerodromes and regular additions in men and machinery were soon made, particularly, in these early days, from Detling. By 1917 the Royal Flying Corps was well established and taking an active part in the defence of England.

At a time when Zeppelin raids were bringing the war directly to English civilians, daylight bombing raids by German 'Gotha' Bombers, a twin engined biplane, would have been considerably more effective were it not for the RFC's presence at Manston.

The German air raids had lasted for thirteen weeks, the last being on 22 August 1917. On this occasion, of the 15 bombers that set out for England five did not reach the Kent coast, and the 'spirited' intervention from Manston based fighters prevented those remaining from flying further west, three being destroyed outright and the remaining seven returning to Germany with dead and wounded on board.

Shortly after such formation raids and in consequence the Cabinet recommended the creation of a separate Air Ministry. The RAF was officially formed on 1 April 1918.

An item of some interest and great curiosity relating to the inter-war history of Manston and its personnel, is one of the long list of inspired rescues off the Thanet coast. A link between the airfield and the Goodwin Sands is revealed in the pages of: The History of R.A.F Manston by Flt. Lt. Rocky Stockman RAF, and is told by Wing Commander Bryson who recalled an adventure at sea involving the high speed launches stationed at Ramsgate Harbour in 1936 for duty with the no. 48 (gr) Squadron.

He reports: "we had two of these launches, equipped with old aero engines by a firm in Cowes - they had never run for more than 15 minutes without conking out. One afternoon the Royal Temple Yacht Club had a race from Ramsgate. A squall blew up and the yachts ran aground on the treacherous quicksands. With trepidation I ordered out the two high speed rescue launches, which, miraculously, managed to keep going and rescued the boats - as if old Culmer White had been watching over them!"

World War II
In World War II, after an eventful Battle of Britain during which Manston was heavily bombed, Barnes Wallis used the base to test his bouncing bomb on the coast at nearby Reculver prior to the Dambusters raid. [1] A prototype is on public display at the Spitfire & Hurricane Museum. Hawker Typhoon attack aircraft were based there later in the war, and also the first Meteor jet squadron of the RAF. It was used as a departure point for airborne forces in Operation Market Garden. It was one of the few airfields installed with the Fog Investigation Dispersal Organisation (FIDO) system designed to remove fog from airfields by burning it off with petrol. Being close to the front-line and having a long and broad runway the airfield became something of a magnet for badly damaged aeroplanes that had suffered from ground fire, collisions, or air attack but retained a degree of airworthiness. The airfield became something of a "graveyard" for heavy bombers and no doubt the less-damaged portions of aircraft landing or otherwise arriving here sometimes provided spare parts for other allied aircraft in need of repair. The museums on site displays some startling aerial views dating from this era and the post-war years.

USAF use

USAF SAC B-47 in flight
Republic F-84E-1-RE Thunderjets of the 512th Fighter-Bomber Squadon. Serial 49-2066 is in the foreground.
North American F-86D-45-NA Sabre Serial 52-4063 of the 513th Fighter Interceptor SquadronDuring the Cold War of the 1950s the United States Air Force used Manston as a Strategic Air Command base for its fighter and fighter-bomber units.

In the early 1950s, SAC's backbone bombers were the Convair B-36 and Boeing B-47 Stratojet. To support this strategy, the SAC 7th Air Division was established in May 1951. The 7th AD expanded Manston by expanding the take-off and landing runways, building concrete bunkers suitable for nuclear weapons and upgrading the support facilites for long-term use.

By the summer of 1953, the 7th AD began a series of temporary deployments of B-47 and B-36 wings from the United States to the UK. These deployments generally involved about 45 aircraft, together with about 20 KC-97 Stratotankers which were maintained at the English bases for 90 days. At the end of the Temporary Duty (TDY), they were relieved by another SAC wing that was genrally stationed at a different airfield. These deployments continued until 1955 when SAC shifted it's rotational deployments to RAF Fairford and Marston was turned over to the United States Air Forces in Europe.

In July 1951 SAC deployed the 12th Fighter-Escort Wing to Manston to provide fighter escort for its rotational bombardment wings. The 12th, however, only remained at Manston until 30 November when it was replaced by the 123d Fighter-Bomber Wing, with the 12th being transferred to Japan for combat duty during the Korean War.

The 123d was an umbrella wing that was formed from several Air National Guard squadrons activated for Federal service during the Korean War. This wing was activated at Manston with three ANG fighter squadrons:

156th Fighter-Bomber Squadron (North Carolina ANG)
165th Fighter-Bomber Squadron (Kentucky ANG)
167th Fighter-Bomber Squadron (West Virginia ANG)
The 123d utilized the F-84E "Thunderjets" left behind by the 12th FEW and continued the same mission of fighter escort of SAC's bombers.

In July 1952 the Air National Guard squadrons were returned to State control, and USAFE assumed the fighter escort role. In its place, the 406th Fighter-Bomber Wing was activated in place at Manston with the following squadrons assigned:

512th Fighter-Bomber Squadron (Yellow Stripe)
513th Fighter-Bomber Squadron (Red Stripe)
514th Fighter-Bomber Squadron (Dark Blue Stripe)
Initially, the 406th utilized the existing F-84Es, however in August 1953, the F-86F "Saber" began to arrive to replace them.

A change of mission for the 406th in April 1954 from fighter-bomber to figher-interceptor came with a change of equipment. The F-86D began to arrive and the F-86F's were transferred to other USAFE squadrons and NATO countries. In addition, the 512th FBS was transferred to Soesterberg Air Base, Netherlands with their F-86Fs.

In June F-86D's arrived from CONUS to equip the 87th Fighter-Interceptor Squadron which was transferred to the 406th from the 81st FBW assigned to RAF Shepherds Grove. The 87th FIS, however, physically remained at Shepherds Grove, but was under the organizational command of the 406th at Manston. In September 1955, the 87th was redesignated the 512th FIS.

In May 1958 the 406th was deactivated in place, with its three air defense squadrons being assigned to contentinal Europe under the 86th Air Division (Defense) at Ramstein Air Base West Germany. The squadrons were transferred to the following bases:

512th FIS to Sembach Air Base, West Germany
513th FIS to Phalsbourg-Bourscheid Air Base France
514th FIS to Ramstein Air Base, West Germany
The F-86D's were eventually withdrawn from Europe in 1961, and the 512th, 513th and 514th were deactivated.

After the transfer of the USAFE interceptors at Marston the base was returned to the RAF control.

RAF use

With the USAF's withdrawal from Manston, the airfield became a joint civilian and RAF airport from 1960 and was thence employed for occasional package tour and cargo flights, alongside its continuing role as an RAF base. The Air Cadets used the northern side of the airfield as a gliding site, and an Air Experience Flight flying De Havilland Chipmunks was based there. Thanks to its broad long runway, (built during World War II, along with Woodbridge's, to allow returning damaged bombers a longer than usual runway to land on) Manston was used as a diversionary airfield for emergency military and civilian landings.

From 1989 Manston became optimistically styled as Kent International Airport, and a new terminal was officially opened that year by the Duchess of York. It is allegedly listed by NASA, although never used, as an emergency diversionary landing strip for the space shuttle programme, but contrary to some opinion the runway is not unusually long, and does not actually rank among the ten longest runways at civil airports in the UK.

Source: Kent aviation: Roy Humphreys

Post-1990
Manston is now a wholly commercial airport. In 1998 Thanet District Council produced the Isle of Thanet local plan which recognised the economic development potential of abandoned parts of the old military airfield, particularly on its north western edge.

After this plan was published, the Ministry of Defence announced plans to sell off RAF Manston. After a ruling by the British Labour Government's Chancellor of the Exchequer, Gordon Brown, instructing government departments to generate money by the sale of surplus assets, following the example of the Thatcher government, the Ministry of Defence sold the site.

Rapid development began in 2004 in an attempt to make it a budget airline hub and an Irish airline EUjet formed in 2002 began scheduled flights in September 2004 with a small fleet of Fokker F100 airliners. Car parking areas were built and a direct coach service from Bluewater via Chatham was instituted to support this enterprise, which follows the low fare, no-frills, web-marketing style pioneered by ryanair in the UK. Unfortunately on 26 July 2005 all EUjet operations were suspended along with all non-freight operations at the airport due to financial difficulties with the airport and airline's owner PlaneStation. Their business plan was ambitious and their bankers had lost patience, causing both businesses to fail and leading to many passengers being stranded abroad. Infratil, a Wellington, New Zealand based company subsequently bought the airport interest from the administrators and, having experience of managing a peripheral airport in Scotland, Prestwick, might pursue a more measured development programme, perhaps winning back some freight operations reportedly deterred by Planestation.

Following the RAF's departure local MP, Dr. Stephen Ladyman opposed the decision to sell the base to a property developer (Wiggins Group PLC). The ministry sold the site at the end of March, 1999 for the sum of £4.75m. The airfield comprises 700 acres (2.8 km²).

Kent International Airport was initially a 38 acre (150,000 m²) civilian area within the former RAF Manston including the existing terminal building and an apron where passengers embark and the largest of freighters may be loaded. The runway however, is not included within this enclave. In 1988 the owners of Kent International Airport negotiated a 125 year legal agreement with the RAF obliging the Air force to maintain the runway, the air-traffic control and to provide ongoing emergency services. The cost of providing runway maintenance, air-traffic control and Fire and Rescue services had been estimated at up to £3,000,000 per annum by the MoD.

The RAF faced a compensation claim of £50-100 million if they then closed the base and terminating their earlier agreement with Kent International Airport. The Wiggins Group therefore purchased the Kent International Airport and inherited the legal agreement obliging the RAF to continue maintenance of the airfield. Within six months the RAF announced that they were leaving the airfield and Wiggins as the successful bidders then purchased the remainder of the airfield.

The contents of this website are not endorsed by Kent International Airport, Infratil or any other company associated with the Airport or it's employee's.