Up the junction stories wanted on RAF Saul

[robin bird]

The memories of Eric Blackman led me from RAF Helensburgh and Dumbarton to Saul Junction, where there was a WW11 mtb and seaplane tender base on the canal known as RAF Saul. I wonder if anyone in the forum can add further details, or even a photograph? Another Eric, Eric Haynes, was with the MAEE marine experimental section RAF Helensburgh at the same time as my father. Eric Blackman was posted from Dumbarton to Saul, where I now have close boating friends who want to know more about this lesser known RAF marine section.Can anyone help? Eric's recollections of RAF Helensburgh have been helpful in my research into the Marine Aircraft Experimental Establishment

[bruce dennis]

Hello Robin,
Have you seen this?

http://www.cotswoldcanalsheritage.or...e_id__124.aspx

Bruce

[robin bird]

yes, I have seen this. Thank you for telling me. I have been in touch with him. Thanks again.

[bruce dennis]

Hello Robin,
Further to the information in the link, the writer tells of joining 62 MU possibly when it was formed. 62 MU was listed as having the function 'Marine Craft Storage' and was located at Dumbarton, part of 40 Group, in 1943. I have not checked other dates but have found no references to RAF SAUL in any lists yet.

HTH,
Bruce

[robin bird]

Eric Blackman was posted from Dumbarton to Tewkesbury on the Severn to start a new storage unit. 'We were soon sent to a little village called Saul on the Gloucester Sharpness Ship Canal. He set off in a marine tender down the Severn to Gloucester and went by canal to Saul Junction. There the boathouse was being used as RAF Saul headquarters.

[bruce dennis]

Yes, I read that and wondered if for a brief time there was such a unit on the books but it doesn't look like that is the case. 'RAF SAUL' may be what the lads called it but the name wasn't official. Have you looked at AIR 29/1018, the 62 MU ORB? By the way, do you have any dates to work to?

HTH
Bruce

[robin bird]

thank you for the feedback and suggestion Bruce. Get the impression that Eric Blackman was relating to the latter part of the war. He was previously at Dumbarton and was first posted to Tewkesbury to start a new storage unit.Maybe 'RAF Saul' was an offshoot. Initially eight men went there from Tewkesbury and found billets in the village. Gradually ferry crews started arriving and high speed launches and pinnaces were moored on the canal. Sea plane tenders came by road. They were unloaded by steam railway crane and towed to Saul with crew members on bikes to open the bridges. So it sounds a fairly big operation, RAF Saul or not. What a shame no photographs exist. It sounds like an ideal posting during the war.

[robin bird]

Two submarines H49 and H33 managed to navigate the canal in 1937

[robin bird]

I now believe 'RAF Saul' was an out station of No 228 Maintenance Unit that prepared vessels for D-Day