Gliding at RAF St Merryn

Number 82 Royal Air Force Gliding School was based at Roborough Down Airfield in Plymouth and disbanded at Royal Naval Air Station St Merryn near Newquay in Cornwall in 1950. The Royal Navy's Fleet Air Arm ran RNAS St Merryn and was responsible for operating naval aircraft on ships and land. After the terms of German surrender and the Treaty of Versailles at the end of World War One, Germany had to demilitarise and turned to gliding as an alternative to motorised aircraft.

Between the wars, Germany, Britain, France and Russia led the way in developing gliders or sailplanes that were designed to new aerodynamic standards. In 1940, Germany led a daring and successful gliderborne attack of Belgian Eben-Emael Fort forcing the incoming Prime Minister, Winston Churchill to instruct the British Air Ministry to set up a Glider Training Squadron. After the Second World War gliding remained popular but was eventually abandoned by the military. Flight Lieutenant John ‘Jack' Rand received the Distinguished Flying Cross for operations carried out over Burma in 1944 for Major-General Wingate's Chindits who specialised in long range penetration missions against the Japanese.