About
RAF Snaith was a Bomber Command airfield on the flat land between Goole and Selby, opened in 1941 and named for the nearby market town although the site itself lies in the parish of Pollington. It was home first to 150 Squadron and then, from October 1942 until the end of the war in Europe, to 51 Squadron flying Handley Page Halifaxes as part of 4 Group. From here crews flew the long, cold, statistically appalling operations over Germany and occupied Europe that defined Bomber Command's war, and a great many of them did not come back.
The museum stands on what was WAAF Site Number 1, the accommodation area for the Women's Auxiliary Air Force personnel who worked at the station, and it was created by a group of local volunteers determined that the airfield should not be forgotten. Its remit is deliberately broader than the aircrew: it commemorates the men and women of 150 Squadron, 51 Squadron and the Women's Land Army who were based on or worked around the site between 1941 and 1949.
That span matters. Airfield museums tend to concentrate on the flying and on the twelve months of a squadron's greatest fame; this one takes in the ground crew, the WAAFs on the domestic sites, the Land Army women in the surrounding fields, and the years after the shooting stopped when the station wound down. The result is a picture of a wartime airfield as a small, temporary, mud-bound town of several thousand people, most of whom never flew.
The collection is assembled largely from local donation and from the families of those who served, and it has the character that goes with that: photographs, uniforms, documents, personal effects, recovered airfield material and squadron memorabilia, interpreted by volunteers who frequently know the individuals concerned. A NAAFI-style café serves refreshments and sells the museum's own merchandise.
Admission is free and the museum runs on donations. It opens on Sundays through the summer season, and its 1940s weekend in September is the largest event of its year. Nothing much remains of the airfield itself — the runways went for hardcore, as they did almost everywhere — which makes the survival of the WAAF site and the museum inside it more valuable than its modest scale suggests.
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Plan Your Visit
⏱️ Recommended Visit Duration
💡 Visitor Tips
- The museum opens on Sundays only, roughly April to early November — do not travel on a weekday expecting to get in.
- Check the museum's social media before setting out. Its own website has been intermittently unavailable and the volunteers post current information there.
- Admission is free, so bring cash for the donation box and the NAAFI café — that is what funds the place.
- The museum is at Pollington, not in Snaith itself, despite the name; set your sat nav to DN14 0DF and look for the small roadside sign.
- Talk to the volunteers. Many have family or local connections to the station and know the individual crews behind the photographs.
- The September 1940s weekend is the biggest event of the year — go then for atmosphere and re-enactment, or avoid it if you want a quiet look at the collection.
- Allow time to look at the surrounding landscape; fragments of the airfield's perimeter track and dispersed buildings can still be picked out nearby.
- The site advertises full disabled access, which is unusual for a converted wartime airfield and worth knowing if that matters to you.
Highlights
51 Squadron and the Halifax
51 Squadron flew Handley Page Halifaxes from Snaith from October 1942 until the end of the European war, operating within 4 Group over Germany, occupied France and the Ruhr. The Halifax has always lived in the Lancaster's shadow in the popular memory, unfairly so: it carried a comparable load, was better liked by many crews for its survivability, and did an enormous share of the work.
The museum's displays on the squadron cover its operations, its losses and its individual crews, and are the core of the collection.
The Halifax also carried a crew of seven, and Snaith lost a great many of them.
The WAAF Site
The museum occupies WAAF Site Number 1, the living quarters of the Women's Auxiliary Air Force personnel attached to the station, and the fact that the buildings themselves are the exhibit gives the visit its particular quality.
WAAFs at a bomber station worked as clerks, drivers, cooks, parachute packers, radio operators and plotters, and they lived in dispersed hutted sites like this one, some distance from the airfield proper, in conditions that were cold, basic and permanent. Standing in the accommodation area conveys the reality of that better than any reconstruction.
By 1943 women made up a substantial fraction of every station strength.
The Women's Land Army Collection
The museum's remit deliberately includes the Women's Land Army, whose members worked the farmland around the airfield throughout the war and afterwards.
It is an unusual inclusion for an RAF site and a welcome one: the Land Army has been comparatively poorly commemorated, and the fields that fed the country were worked in immediate proximity to the runways from which the bombers left. Uniforms, photographs and personal accounts document a form of war service that was hard, badly paid and largely invisible in the official record.
Many stayed on the land well after 1945, and were never issued a campaign medal.
150 Squadron and the Early Years
Before 51 Squadron arrived, RAF Snaith was home to 150 Squadron, flying Wellingtons in the earlier and in some respects even more precarious phase of the bomber offensive, when navigation was rudimentary, losses were heavy and the accuracy of the whole enterprise was in serious doubt. The museum's material on this period covers the opening of the station in 1941 and the squadron's operations before it moved on.
It is a useful reminder that the bomber war changed enormously in character between 1941 and 1945.
The Wellington was a fine aircraft asked to do rather more than it reasonably could.
Collections
The collection documents RAF Snaith from its opening in 1941 to the closure of activity on the site in 1949, covering 150 Squadron, 51 Squadron and the Women's Land Army. Holdings are drawn largely from local donation and from the families of those who served, and comprise crew and station photographs, logbooks, letters and documents, RAF and WAAF uniforms and flying kit, medals, squadron memorabilia, and material recovered from the airfield itself.
The buildings of WAAF Site Number 1, in which the museum is housed, are themselves part of the collection.
Interpretation is provided principally by volunteers, many with direct family or local connections to the station, and the museum functions as a working memorial to the aircrew, ground staff and auxiliary personnel who passed through a station that has otherwise largely vanished from the landscape.
51 Squadron at Snaith
The museum's principal display, covering 51 Squadron's Halifax operations from RAF Snaith between 1942 and 1945, its crews, its losses and its place within 4 Group of Bomber Command.
Life on the Station
Displays on the WAAF site, ground crew, the Women's Land Army and the daily life of a wartime bomber airfield, housed in the surviving WAAF accommodation buildings.
Themes
Time Periods
Current Exhibitions
No current exhibitions. Please check the museum website for updates.