RAF Pembroke Dock Memorial Window Is Coming Home!
RAF Pembroke Dock Memorial Window Is Coming Home!
Pembroke Dock created its own piece of aviation history in October 1945, just weeks after the end of World War II, by becoming the first community in Britain to unveil a memorial window in memory of its airmen lost during the conflict.
A magnificent stained glass window, bearing the crests of six wartime squadrons from the RAF, Royal Australian Air Force, Royal Canadian Air Force and the United States Navy, was dedicated in the RAF Church – the former Royal Dockyard Chapel which today is the Pembroke Dock Heritage Centre. It remained there until the RAF closed the station in 1959.
After many years in the officers’ mess at RAF Mount Batten, Plymouth – another famous flying boat station – the window was donated to the RAF Museum in Hendon, London, and went on display in 1994.
Now, 30 years on, it is coming home!
The Pembroke Dock Heritage Trust has an excellent partnership link with the RAF Museum which has offered the Window on long loan for display in the Heritage Centre. It will be returning to Pembroke Dock early in the New Year and will be officially re-dedicated on Sunday, October 26th 2025, by the Chaplain-in-Chief of the RAF, The Venerable Air Vice-Marshal Giles Legood.
To achieve this, the Heritage Trust has to raise a considerable sum of money to fund both the transport of the window and its re-erection in the Centre, both by specialist firms.
A fundraising appeal has been launched with a Just Giving Page
https://www.justgiving.com/campaign/pdht-window
Please help us to achieve the Window’s Return Home with a donation to the above or to:
Pembroke Dock Heritage Centre
Royal Dockyard Chapel
Meyrick Owen Way
Pembroke Dock
SA72 6WS
01646 684220
In 1945, soon after VE-Day, RAF Pembroke Dock and the local community funded, commissioned and dedicated a memorial window in memory of those lost from this station in wartime.
We do not know of any other RAF station nationwide which instigated such a memorial to remember its wartime losses in this way, so soon after war’s end.
It was dedicated in the east window of the RAF Church (former Royal Dockyard Chapel, dating from the 1830s) by the Chaplain-in-Chief of the RAF, in October 1945, just three months after the end of the war.
When RAF Pembroke Dock closed in the late 1950s the Memorial Window was re-located to RAF Mount Batten officers’ mess. Later, with the closure of Mount Batten, the RAF made the decision to locate it at the RAF Museum, Hendon. It was unveiled there in 1994.
Its simple dedication remembers the sacrifices made by servicemen from many nations serving at RAF Pembroke Dock who died during the six years of the war.
It reads: ‘In proud and grateful memory of the officers and men who gave their lives whilst serving on this station in the cause of freedom, 1939-1945’
The window was made by a Welsh firm, Bristow and Wadley.