Dale Airfield
Dale Airfield sits on the southwestern tip of the Pembrokeshire peninsula in Wales, occupying a broad, windswept plateau above the village of Dale on the shore of Milford Haven waterway. The site is historically significant as a former Royal Air Force station that played a substantial role during the Second World War, and today it retains the distinctive ghostly character of a decommissioned military aerodrome — wide stretches of cracked and grass-fringed concrete, the remains of perimeter tracks, and the occasional brick or corrugated structure that has survived decades of post-war weathering and neglect. For aviation historians, military heritage enthusiasts, and those with a fondness for the quietly melancholic atmosphere of abandoned infrastructure set against spectacular coastal scenery, Dale Airfield is a genuinely compelling destination.
The airfield was constructed in the early years of the Second World War and opened in 1943, becoming RAF Dale. It was primarily a Coastal Command station, which made geographical sense given its position commanding the approaches to Milford Haven and the wider St George's Channel. Aircraft operating from Dale — including Sunderland flying boats that used the sheltered waters nearby and land-based patrol aircraft — conducted anti-submarine patrols over the Western Approaches, a theatre of war that was critically important during the Battle of the Atlantic. The station also supported air-sea rescue operations. Like many wartime aerodromes constructed hastily on agricultural land, it was returned to civilian use after 1945 and the military presence wound down, leaving behind the concrete skeleton of a wartime infrastructure that nature and time have been slowly reclaiming ever since.
Physically, visiting Dale Airfield today means walking across a landscape that oscillates between open plateau and coastal edge. The concrete runways and taxiways are still largely present, though broken up in places by frost, vegetation, and decades of weather rolling in off the Atlantic. Gorse and bracken encroach on the margins. The wind here is almost constant and can be fierce — this part of Pembrokeshire is one of the windiest corners of Wales, and the exposed plateau amplifies every Atlantic gust. On a clear day the views are extraordinary, stretching across Milford Haven to the refineries on the northern shore and out to the west toward the open sea. The sounds are elemental: wind, gulls, and the occasional distant throb of a ship navigating the Haven.
The surrounding landscape is the Pembrokeshire Coast National Park, and Dale Airfield sits within one of its more dramatic coastal sections. The village of Dale itself, just below the plateau, is a small sailing community with a sheltered beach and a reputation as one of the sunniest places in Wales. The Dale Peninsula is ringed by the Pembrokeshire Coast Path, which dips and climbs around headlands and coves of considerable beauty. St Ann's Head, the southern tip of the peninsula, is only a short walk or drive away and is home to a lighthouse that has guided ships into Milford Haven for centuries. The entire area around Dale is rich in wildlife, with seabirds, grey seals, and — further out — dolphin and porpoise in season.
Access to the airfield is via minor roads from the village of Dale. Much of the former airfield land is now used for agriculture or sits as open rough ground, and some areas are accessible on foot along the coast path or across public access land, though visitors should be aware that portions of the site may fall on private farmland. The coast path itself provides excellent vantage points over the old airfield infrastructure. There are no formal visitor facilities at the airfield itself, so anyone making the trip should come prepared with appropriate footwear and clothing for exposed coastal conditions. The best time to visit is spring or early summer, when the gorse is in brilliant yellow bloom, visibility is generally good, and the coastal wildlife is at its most active. Autumn visits have their own dramatic quality when storms build in from the southwest. Parking is available in Dale village.
One of the more poignant and historically layered aspects of the Dale Airfield site is how completely the landscape has absorbed what was once a busy, purposeful military installation. During the war years, this plateau would have been a place of noise, fuel, ordnance, and urgent human activity — aircraft engines running up, crews briefing for patrols over some of the most dangerous stretches of ocean in the world. Today the same plateau is largely quiet, with lapwings tumbling in the wind and cattle occasionally grazing across the old dispersal areas. The juxtaposition of that violent and consequential history with the pastoral and coastal calm of the present day is the quality that makes sites like Dale Airfield unexpectedly moving for those who take the time to read the ground beneath their feet.