The Reef was taken over by the Ministry of War in 1939. Three runways and a camp for 2,000 service men and women were built. At first, RAF Tiree played a role in search and rescue during the Battle of the Atlantic.
In 1943, 518 Squadron moved to Tiree. Using adapted Halifaxes, missions to collect weather data were flown deep into the Atlantic.
518 is credited with discovering a weather front off Iceland that forced Eisenhower to delay D-Day by one day in June 1944, one of the most consequential decisions of the Second World War.
