East Lothian's WWII airfields
East Lothian is rich in wartime aviation heritage, dating from both the First and the Second World Wars. All the WWII aerodromes (with the exception of the Satellite Landing Ground at Lennoxlove) saw action during the Great War. The main reason for this was that Scotland's largest naval base at Rosyth near Edinburgh, and its associated shipping in the Firth of Forth, was thought to be an attractive target for roving Zeppelins and submarines during WWI. East Lothian, lying near the mouth of the Forth, was an ideal area in which to base airships and planes to patrol the Forth and protect both Rosyth and British shipping.
When war again broke out in 1939 the same threat remained as Rosyth was still operating, and East Lothian was again called on to protect shipping in the Forth. Furthermore, when Britain eventually produced an appropriate number of planes required to fight against Germany, it was found that there were not enough pilots to fly them! Clearly more pilots would have to be trained, and the relative safety, sparse population and flat farmland of East Lothian proved ideal for developing WWI airfields into modern aerodromes that could be used for training aircrew from throughout the Commonwealth and Poland.