Next on Clooney Road is Maydown Roundabout, to the left is an industrial estate constructed on top of a former military airfield which extends into the nearby Du Pont factory complex. Maydown Airfield operated from 1941 to 1947 and like all of the airfields along this coast, the job of those stationed here was to guard the convoys through the Western Approaches in the Battle of the Atlantic and to destroy hostile enemy ships and submarines. From 1941 to 1942 it was a satelite to nearby R.A.F. Eglinton. It was a USAAF airfield for a period in 1942 transfering to Royal Naval command in 1943, when it became known as RNAS Maydown and HMS Shrike. The drawing above is a copy of a photograph from c1944 when Fairy Swordfish were stationed at the site. A nice mild Lough Foyle day it was too! Today, remnants of the runways can still be seen, though all associated buildings are gone.
