RAF Locking was opened in January 1939 just before the start of WW2 as a training camp providing training in aircraft trades including flight mechanics, airframes, engines, parachute training and air gunnery. There were satellite camps near Banwell at Knightcott, on Summer Lane and at Hill End. During the war RAF Locking became a huge hutted encampment where it was not unusual to have 6,000 personnel on parade at the same time. Four years after opening the school had trained 30,682 tradesmen for the RAF and Fleet Air Arm.
In 1950 the ‘No. 1 Radio School’ moved to Locking to provide training for radio and radar technicians, and as radar became an important part of the RAF the site became a specialist school for electronics. The Radio School moved to RAF Cosford in 1998, and RAF Locking closed on 31st March 1999 sixty years after it had opened. The RAF finally left the site in 2000.
See http://www.lockingheritage.org/raflocking.html for more details.
The following sheets illustrate Locking Camp cancellations, from 1958 to 1986.
