The Dummy Drome

This is the story of a WW2 airfield that wasn’t there.

RAF Wick was a decoy airfield near Sarclet, by Thrumster in Caithness. For a brief period it was busy, active and vital, full of people and buildings with three broad and very obvious tracks with lights and noise. It was very much on the map, specifically designed to draw attention to itself. But it was an illusion dreamed up by military strategists and cinema-set designers.

Air Ministry cartographers transposed the design of a real aerodrome onto a blank area on the map. Planners added standard building designs in the right places. Construction workers created runways that a plane could not land on. Artists and craftsmen made planes that couldn’t fly. Men and women from all over the country came to work at a place that was not a working airfield, although their very presence was an essential part of the deception.

This book tells the story of how RAF Wick became a part of the lives of the people who built it, worked there or lived nearby.