Comments (0)Royal Naval Air Station Culdrose dominates Helston and the Lizard today. It opened in 1947, but before that, and during the First World War, the centre of anti-submarine operations in the county was RNAS Mullion.

In 1916, German U-boats were having great success sinking merchant vessels and Royal Navy warships in the English Channel. The decision was taken to use airships to combat them, and RNAS Mullion was established on the Lizard.

Originally called Lizard Airship Station, 320 acres of the Bonython Estate soon became a large wartime complex, with accommodation blocks, gas storage tanks and processing plants, workshops and two vast airship hangars that towered over the countryside.

Its strategic position ensured it was well located in the battle against the German threat. RNAS Mullion became central to anti-submarine

operations off the Cornish coast and in the South-Western Approaches throughout the war. Airships proved a formidable deterrent against U-boats while also performing reconnaissance, patrol, mine-hunting and convoy escort duties.

At this time the Royal Naval Air Service operated all airships used throughout Britain, and the first to operate at Mullion were of the non-rigid Coastal class. They were constructed with a gondola for the crew and a ‘tri-lobe balloon’ containing 170,000 cubic feet of hydrogen.

With a crew of five, and armed with four machine guns and a small number of bombs or depth charges, Coastals provided the nucleus of the Lizard’s airship fleet. Their open, unheated cockpits were uncomfortable – crew members resorted to walking around the outside on the grab-rails to stretch their legs – and in winter, crews risked frostbite and hypothermia. Often, ground handlers would have to lift airmen from their cockpits after patrols lasting up to 15 hours.

Other airship types were developed throughout the war, but the most successful were the Coastals.

Often described as “the darling of the Airship Service”, C9 operated from Mullion and chalked up one confirmed and three probable U-boat kills during her career. She entered service in June 1916 and was struck off in September 1918, completing 3,720 flying hours and covering more than 68,200 miles.

It was claimed that in her 805 days of service, she had never missed an assigned patrol.

While most patrols made no enemy sightings, another airship, C22, also from Mullion, reported an attack in February 1917 after being alerted that a steamer had been torpedoed.

Carrying out a sweep of the area, Flight Sub-Lieutenant Charles Sydney Coltson spotted a submarine surfacing.

He said afterwards: “When the conning tower was above the surface and the hull visible, she must have spotted us and began to submerge again.

“I altered course towards her and opened out to full speed. I got to the spot and dropped one bomb which fell ahead of her and failed to explode.

“I put my helm hard over and released my second bomb, scoring a direct hit on the conning tower of the submarine.”

C22’s crew reported a large quantity of oil on the surface and numerous bubbles. Nothing further was seen of that U-boat.

Coltson stayed in the area for a further two hours with no sign of the submarine and a kill was credited to his airship.

He received the Distinguished Service Cross (DSC) for his service at Mullion. In all, four DSCs, three Distinguished Service Medals and nine mentions in dispatches were awarded to the sailors of Mullion.

RNAS Mullion closed in the summer of 1919 after hostilities ended. The airships were decommissioned and the land returned to its owners. Today, evidence of the base can still be detected and six vast wind turbines act as a convenient landmark for the site.

Most of the airship station is now overgrown, but the hangar floors remain, along with huge concrete blocks that once supported windbreaks and hangar doors, and are the only evidence of what was the front line of the First World War in Cornwall.