page_title: RAF Mount Batten
section_title: Royal Air Force Station Mount Batten
hierarchical_section_title: RAF Mount Batten / History / Royal Air Force Station Mount Batten
caption_attribution_description: Mounbatten,Plymouth,Devon,England,UK
context_page_description: RAF Mount Batten was a Royal Air Force station and flying boat base at Mount Batten, a peninsula in Plymouth Sound, Devon, England. Originally a seaplane station opened in 1917 as a Royal Navy Air Service Station Cattewater it became RAF Cattewater in 1918 and in 1928 was renamed RAF Mount Batten. The station motto was In Honour Bound which is the motto of the Mountbatten family.
  Today, little evidence of the RAF base remains apart from several memorials, some aviation-related road names, the main slipway and two impressive Grade II listed F-type aeroplane hangars dating from 1917.
context_section_description: On 1 October 1928, following re-building, the old Cattewater seaplane station was opened as RAF Mount Batten. The main reason for the new station was to provide a base for flying boats to defend south-west England. The first squadron (No. 203 Squadron RAF) became operational with the Supermarine Southampton.
  The station also became a base for high-speed air sea rescue launches on which, in the 1930s, was employed Aircraftman Shaw, better known as T. E. Lawrence, who had suggested the change of name. The base is actually named after Captain Batten, a Civil War commander who defended this area at the time, with the Mountbatten family motto taken as the station's motto.
  With the start of the Second World War there was an increase in operational flying from Mount Batten. It was also the target for a number of German air raids including the destruction of one of the hangars and a Short Sunderland on 28 November 1940.
  At the end of the war the Australian squadron departed for home and the station became a Maintenance Unit. At the end of the 1950s the station became the Marine Craft Training School and from 1961 became the main base of the RAF Marine Branch, with the closure of No. 238 MU, Calshot. Although without any aircraft, the station became the centre for both marine craft until the marine branch closed in 1986 and the School of Survival until it moved in 1992. It also housed No. 3 Maritime Headquarters Unit of the Royal Auxiliary Air Force providing Communications and Operations Room personnel.
caption: Mount Batten from Plymouth Hoe
exif: {"Image Make": "LEICA", "Image Model": "C-LUX 1", "Image Orientation": "Horizontal (normal)", "Image XResolution": "72", "Image YResolution": "72", "Image ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Image Software": "Ver.1.0", "Image DateTime": "2007:07:31 10:01:02", "Image YCbCrPositioning": "Co-sited", "Image ExifOffset": "414", "Image PrintIM": "[80, 114, 105, 110, 116, 73, 77, 0, 48, 50, 53, 48, 0, 0, 14, 0, 1, 0, 22, 0, ... ]", "Thumbnail Compression": "JPEG (old-style)", "Thumbnail Orientation": "Horizontal (normal)", "Thumbnail XResolution": "72", "Thumbnail YResolution": "72", "Thumbnail ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormat": "7060", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormatLength": "5155", "Thumbnail YCbCrPositioning": "Co-sited", "EXIF ExposureTime": "1/640", "EXIF FNumber": "10", "EXIF ExposureProgram": "Program Normal", "EXIF ISOSpeedRatings": "400", "EXIF ExifVersion": "0220", "EXIF DateTimeOriginal": "2007:07:31 10:01:02", "EXIF DateTimeDigitized": "2007:07:31 10:01:02", "EXIF ComponentsConfiguration": "YCbCr", "EXIF CompressedBitsPerPixel": "4", "EXIF ExposureBiasValue": "0", "EXIF MaxApertureValue": "3", "EXIF MeteringMode": "Pattern", "EXIF LightSource": "Unknown", "EXIF Flash": "Flash did not fire, auto mode", "EXIF FocalLength": "71/5", "EXIF FlashPixVersion": "0100", "EXIF ColorSpace": "sRGB", "EXIF ExifImageWidth": "1920", "EXIF ExifImageLength": "1080", "Interoperability InteroperabilityIndex": "R98", "Interoperability InteroperabilityVersion": "[48, 49, 48, 48]", "EXIF InteroperabilityOffset": "6908", "EXIF SensingMethod": "One-chip color area", "EXIF FileSource": "Digital Camera", "EXIF SceneType": "Directly Photographed", "EXIF CustomRendered": "Normal", "EXIF ExposureMode": "Auto Exposure", "EXIF WhiteBalance": "Auto", "EXIF DigitalZoomRatio": "0", "EXIF FocalLengthIn35mmFilm": "128", "EXIF SceneCaptureType": "Standard", "EXIF GainControl": "High gain up", "EXIF Contrast": "Normal", "EXIF Saturation": "Soft", "EXIF Sharpness": "Soft"}