The Wartime Years at Barrfields Pavilion, Largs

1. Catalina twin-engine Flying Boat.


The Largs Seaplane Base, located on the Largs Channel, was a World War II flying boat reception facility and was one of several marine facilities on the upper Clyde coast. The base was a civilian facility operated by Scottish Aviation Ltd and served as an overflow for the larger Greenock Seaplane Base to the north east.  RAF personnel, usually based at Prestwick, would serve on attachment to the Largs base.

The 1,000 seat Barrfields Pavilion lay across the road from the base, and was requisitioned to provide workshops and administration facilities.  The the adjacent putting greens were used for aircraft dispersal. When the base was active, the road would be closed to all traffic, and canvas screens erected to prevent civilians observing the activity.

In addition to using the waters off the base slipway, flying boats were also moored on the opposite side of the Largs Channel, to the south of two slipways on the northeastern shore of the Great Cumbrae Island. The more northerly slipway is now used by the Largs/Cumbrae ferry.  Seaplanes occasionally sank at their moorings, and there are a number of wrecks recorded in the area.

The original base slipway is now part of the local Royal National Lifeboat Institute (RNLI) Inshore Lifeboat (ILB) station, first established in 1964, and then operating from a small boathouse which probably survived from the base.

Hughie Green, host of the talent show Opportunity Knocks was Commanding Officer of the the base.  During World War II, Green served as a pilot in the Royal Canadian Air Force (RCAF), ferrying aircraft across the Atlantic with RAF Ferry Command.  Green's pilot log book records can be seen at the Largs Heritage Centre.

The Consolidated Aircraft Corporation of San Diego manufactured both the twin engine PBY Catalina and the four engine PB2Y Coronado, both of which were used by the British Coastal Command.  Ferry Command flew the new Catalinas from San Diego to Gander, in Newfoundland, where they were refuelled in preparation for their flight to the Scottish reception facility. One of the Catalina's strengths was its operating range, a maximum of some 3,450 miles, meaning the trip could be done without further refuelling.

When new Catalinas arrived at Largs via the North Atlantic ferry route Scottish Aviation would convert them by fitting British armaments and radio equipment to the aircraft.

In 1945, Iceland Airways Ltd, now Icelandair, made its first international flight from Scotland to Denmark using a Catalina flying from Largs.

(Text based on material in the public domain and CANMORE records on line.)

For further information about wrecks, please follow this LINK

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