With the prospect of war with Germany becoming certain rather than possible, the British government began to make military preparations.

Early in 1938 the Prime Minister, Neville Chamberlain appointed Sir Kingsley Wood as Secretary of State for Air. Before his appointment the output of planes for military use was 80 a month. Under Kingsley Wood the output rose to 546 a month and by the outbreak of war Britain’s aircraft production was on a par with that of Germany.

Second World War
One of the most technically advanced designs of the time was the Spitfire fighter. It had been ordered as early as 1936 but two years later not one plane had been produced. So Wood approached Lord Nuffield, the owner of Morris Motors, to set up a new purpose-built factory at Castle Bromwich to produce the plane for the RAF.

Apparently Nuffield had boasted that he could produce fifty Spitfires a week, but by 1940 during the Battle of Britain all Spitfires involved had been built at Southampton; not a single Spitfire had yet left the Castle Bromwich factory. That month Prime Minister Winston Churchill appointed Lord Beaverbrook as Minister of Aircraft Production and he gave control of the factory to Vickers, who were manufacturing Spitfires in Southampton.

The Castle Bromwich factory was the largest of its kind in the country covering some 140 hectares and employing over 12,000 people. Once production was under way the target of 50 a week was often achieved and by the end of the war almost 12 000 Spitfires were made here, more than half of the total number produced. From 1941 the factory also manufactued over 300 Lancaster bombers.

The factory was naturally a target for the German air force. Indeed the first raid on Birmingham took place in August 1940, when a single bomber, unable to find the Castle Bromwich plant, dropped its bombs over Erdington. This was followed by three weeks of attacks on the east side of the Birmingham. The factory was badlyat this time damaged with 7 killed and 41 injured. The Nuffield factory at Witton was also bombed and 187 houses were damaged. By the war’s end the factory had been hit by over 200 bombs causing eleven fatalities.

The site of the factory had been chosen because of its proximity to the Castle Bromwich airfield. Finished aircraft were towed across the Chester Road to be flight tested before being delivered to their squadrons. The airfield and factory received a number of distinguished visitors including Winston Churchill Mrs Eleanor Roosevelt, the first lady of the USA and the King of Norway.

The Airfield in Peacetime
After the war the airfield was again in use as an RAF training station. By now there were two tarmac runways, although grass runways were still in use, and a number of hangars on the site notably at the Minworth end. After the war open days and air displays were held at Castle Bromwich airfield to commemorate the anniversary of the Battle of Britain, the last of which took place in 1957.

The airfield was again also used for civilian flights, including the world’s first scheduled helicopter service for passengers which flew passengers from Harrods’ sports grounds at Barnes near London to the British Industries Fair at Castle Bromwich in 1950.

The Castle Bromwich aeroplane factory closed at the end of the war to become a car factory.

Closure of the Airfield
In 1958 the airfield was closed and in 1960 the site and that of the British Industries Fair was sold to Birmingham City Council for housing. The building of Castle Vale estate started in 1964 and was complete by 1969.

The roads on the new estate were almost all given the names of World War 2 airfields or names associated with aircraft. Some of the remaining aircraft hangars continued to be used for industrial purposes, though these have all now been replaced. Some late RAF houses still stand along the Chester Road opposite the former aircraft factory. St Cuthbert’s church has a memorial to the 605 (County of Warwick) Squadron, Royal Auxiliary Air Force, which was based here. Original buildings from the Spitfire factory are still in use by Jaguar and a Birmingham Civic Society blue plaque commemorates the factory’s role in Spitfire production.

However, the most obvious memorial is Sentinel, a large steel sculpture by Tim Tolkien made in the year 2000 which stands on the roundabout at the junction of the Chester Road and Tangmere Drive. The roundabout is now known as Spitfire Island.

A Spitfire, known as a gate guardian, stood at the entrance of the airfield from 1954 to 1958. Made at the aircraft factory in 1944 the Spirfire had seen active service with the RAF. When the airfield closed it was transferred to the Birmingham Museum of Science & Industry and then to the Thinktank in 2000 where it is still on display.

There are over 50 Spitfires around the world still in airworthy condition. Of the aircraft operated by the RAF Battle of Britain Memorial Flight Spitfire P7350 is the only one surviving from the Battle of Britain in 1940 still to be flying. It was one of the first to be built at Castle Bromwich.

In August 1914 Britain declared war against Germany and six months later the playing fields at Castle Bromwich were requisitioned by the War Office for use as an airfield.

Castle Bromwich – home of the Midlands’ first powered flight
The first air flight in Castle Bromwich had taken place five years earlier, not from the playing fields but Castle Bromwich golf course. The golf course had been set up in 1896 north of Bromford Road on the higher ground above the Tame valley.

Alfred Pericles Maxfield who had made that first flight in 1909 (six years after the Wright brothers) was both an early aviator and an aeroplane builder. He already made bicycles and motorcycles  from his works in Victoria Road, Aston, and then went on to design his own plane.

The body of the aircraft was mostly made from bicycle tubes and it ran on three bicycle wheels. The plane was powered by a 3hp Garrard-Maxfield motorcycle engine. Maxfield made a number of successful test flights from the golf course in the autumn of 1909, later that year exhibiting his plane in the Royal Hotel in Temple Row (site of Rackhams/ House of Fraser).

Castle Bromwich Airfield opened as a military airbase in 1915
There is some dispute about where later flights took place, whether from the golf course or the playing fields, probably the latter. The celebrated Bentfield Hucks (the first Briton to accomplish a loop-the-loop) flew a Bleriot from Castle Bromwich in 1911, giving passenger flights for up to two people.

Founded in 1909, the Midland Aero Club was one of the country’s earliest private flying clubs and operated from Dunstall Park near Wolverhampton. In 1912 the club moved to Castle Bromwich playing fields where a hangar was built. The club left for Elmdon in 1937.

In 1914 the Castle Bromwich playing fields was one of the control points for the Great Air Race form Hendon to Manchester and back. Eight pilots competed for the ‘Daily Mail’ Gold Cup, there was a prize of £400 and 80,000 people turned up to watch. A French pilot, Louis Noel ran out of petrol near Coventry and landed near a road where a considerate lady motorist gave him two gallons of petrol from her car. However, this only got him as far as Castle Bromwich racecourse where he crash landed and was unable to continue. The race was won by an American, Walter Brock.

Six weeks later Britain and Germany were at war.

In 1915 an air training squadron was set up on the playing fields. The scale of it was very small: initially there were only four aircraft and half a dozen trainee pilots who were accommodated in tents with a marquee for a mess. Pilots also used the footballers’ dressing rooms as living quarters. Later, barracks were built for the airmen. By the end of the war there were ten Royal Flying Corps squadrons training at Castle Bromwich airfield.

First-hand accounts survive from the pilots who trained at the base during the First World War. They make it clear that the siting of the airfield was far from satisfactory. The main sewage works was at the eastern end of the runway, but there were also still filter beds at the western end. It was not unknown for trainees to overshoot the runway and land in the sewage works. There was also the hazard of the railway line with its telegraph poles along the southern edge of the field. Furthermore, the only access to the hangars and workshops from the Chester Road was right across
the middle of the airfield.

As the numbers of trainee pilots increased, accommodating them became a problem: for a time many of them were put up in the jockeys’ quarters at Castle Bromwich racecourse (These were near the present junction of Bromford Road and Bromford Drive). Later others were found digs in Erdington and brought to the airfield daily by truck.

Inadequate Training
It must be remembered that this flying force was being set up little more than ten years after the Wright brothers’ first successful flight. There were no systematic training schedules and very few instructors. Some of those carrying out the training were trainees who had shown themselves most able, others were pilots on leave from the war in France, some of whom were suffering from the nervous effects of battle and probably the least able to inspire confidence in new recruits. The main aim of the camp was to get in as many training hours as possible before the new pilots were sent over to France.

Maintenance of the aircraft was minimal, partly due to a lack of skilled engineers but also because of the need to keep the limited number of aircraft in the air for as long as possible. Planes were taken out of service only when something went wrong.

One of the early trainees described his time at Castle Bromwich as ‘wonderfully easy-going and happy-go-lucky’. However, this cavalier attitude belies the statistics regarding injuries and deaths at the airfield. Research by the Midland Aircraft Recovery Group (http://www.aviationarchaeology.org.uk/marg/) has revealed a list of casualties at Castle Bromwich, the majority of which were caused by pilot error, the result of inadequate supervision and training, and a significant number by mechanical failure.

A Toll of Injury and Death
There were some 70 incidents at Castle Bromwich between 1916 and 1918; over 30 air crew were killed, never to see combat in France; some 50 were injured, many of them seriously.

The list of accidents makes depressing reading. Some pilots crashed into trees on take-off or landing, others flew into the telegraph wires along the railway, hit stationary aircraft on the ground or flew up into planes that were airborne above them. Most common was the failure to complete manoeuvres correctly. Many pilots crashed while carrying out turns or loops, side-slipped or stalled while banking too steeply; or failed to land correctly. A small number of accidents were due to adverse wind conditions while in flight or fog on landing.

The reasons for many of the accidents due to mechanical failure are not detailed; most are just recorded as ‘engine failure’, caused no doubt by insufficient maintenance of the aircraft. Some accidents are hard to stomach. One trainee pilot was injured when he was forced to land after his plane ran out of fuel; he hit a tree and was badly injured.

Injuries and deaths also occurred due to structural failure and fabric being dislodged from the wings; a whole wing collapsed in one incident. One pilot fell to his death from his aircraft while performing a loop when his safety straps broke; the seat of another trainee came loose jamming the controls and he too crashed to his death.

Most of the aircrew were British although some came from Canada, Australia, India and South Africa. A number of Americans are listed. The majority of those killed were taken home to be buried, though some were interred at Curdworth and at Castle Bromwich.

Memorials in Castle Bromwich graveyard
2nd Lt D K Billings 71 Squadron RFC (Royal Flying Corps) died 14.9.1917; David Kitto Billings was from Chicago, Illinois. CWGC (Commonwealth War Graves Commission)
2nd Lt Lucien Herbert Higgs 5 TRAINING Squadron RFC died 8.6.1917 aged 25; Lt Higgs was from Brussels; the monument is in the shape of a cross and must have been put up at his family’s expense.
Lt P C Monyhan 54 Training Squadron RFC died 22.5.1918 CWGC; killed while flying.
Corporal C N Ryder 4 Squadron; Australian Flying Corps died 10.4.1917 CWGC; killed while flying; Clifford Newton Ryder was from Sydney.
2nd Lt William Moorwood Staniforth Queens Own Yorkshire Dragoons 28 Training Squadron RFC died 23.3.1917 aged 32.
Captain Edwin Tufnell Haynes, DSC DFC Royal Naval Air Service, Royal Air Force died 28.4.1919 aged 24; Haynes from Derbyshire was killed in 1919 after the war flying a Bristol Fighter and is commemorated by a private monument. “Let those that come after, see to it that his name be not forgotten”

The Germans had gained initial superiority in the air and the British made a great push to produce more aircraft and the pilots to fly them. Soon after the opening of Castle Bromwich airfield some 2000 pilots were in training there. Most stayed for a maximum of only six months and, although it was the flying aces and their daring battles in the sky who caught the public imagination, the emphasis was rather on air reconnaissance in the early days of military flight.

As industrial activity in Birmingham increased with the war effort, the prevailing winds brought smoke and pollution in the direction of the airfield which was low-lying by the River Tame and already prone to mists and fog. The airfield was then increasingly used for testing aircraft made in the Birmingham area and elsewhere. These were tested on the ground and in the air and included Handley-Pages manufactured by the Birmingham Carriage Company at Smethwick and the Metropolitan Wagon Company at Saltley, which were stored in large purpose-built hangars and then flown out the fighting squadrons.