wig bay

This brings back memories,I come from Stranraer and my father was a partner with McKenzie and Sons who had a maintaince contact on the site in the early 50’s . Wig bay consisted of three main areas ..the sea front which had at least 2 large hangers and a number of smaller open ended ones , this was situated off the road to Kirkcolm where the old slipway can just be seen A larger parking area nearer Kirkcolm is still easily visible today and I remember dozens of Sunderlands being parked there , I can still recall a massive plane with its nose area missing bigger than a double decker bus .
The actually camp was situated at the rear of the hangers approx 400 yards away and I vaguely remember passing by a farm to access it , the camp consisted of accommodation quarters , generators and admin builders both nissan and brick construction .
There are folk memories about American servicemen who presumably arrived to assist in training RAF personnel on the newly arrived Catalinas around 1942/3 and Churchill used the base once for a transatlantic visit to the the States .
The site lay dormant from the late 50’s to the late 60’s and I remember playing in the large empty hangers which still had the odd bit of RAF hand tools /dockets scattered around . I recall a scrap mechant[ probably Kings] using the site and the area around the slipway became a caravan site in the late 60’s
There are very useful local history books from the Stranraer history club , in particular ‘the RAF in Galloway ‘ by A T Murchie [ GC BOOK PUBLISHERS LTD 1992] which provides more detailed information