Mobile Naval Air Base

The Mobile Naval Airfield Organisation (MNAO) was the shore-based component of the naval air logistics organisation. This comprised two types of units, a Mobile Operational Naval Air Base (MONAB) and a Transportable Aircraft Maintenance Yard (TAMY). These were mobile units, the first of which formed in 1944, to provide logistical support to the Fleet Air Arm squadrons of the Royal Navy's British Pacific Fleet, towards the end of World War II.

There were a number of units within and each unit was self-contained and designed to service and repair aircraft and engines. Each were initially assembled at the MNAO headquarters at HMS Flycatcher, which first commissioned at RNAS Ludham, Norfolk, then later at RNAS Middle Wallop, Hampshire, both in the UK, and then were forward deployed.

When the naval threat in the Atlantic was clearly vanishing, with the decline of Nazi Germany, proposals were made to involve the Royal Navy in the Pacific War. The United States Navy's Commander-in-Chief, Admiral Ernest King, did not welcome this, however. A well-known anglophobe, King preferred to exclude the British and, in addition, he laid down operating requirements that could not be met at the time. One of these was that the Royal Navy should be self-sustaining and independent of United States Navy (USN) logistical resources for extended periods of active service.

King was effectively overruled, and the Royal Navy began establishing an adequate logistical infrastructure which included MONABs

During the Second World War, to meet the Royal Navy Eastern Fleet's requirements, to provide serviceable aircraft for aircraft carriers, along with trained aircrew, airbases were constructed in Africa. They were just about completed by the time the fleet returned to Ceylon but at that point they were then no longer required. The Director Naval Air Division (DNAD) drafted requirements for mobile bases in October 1942 and following a meeting in November the concept of a mobile naval airfield was created.

In September 1943, Colonel Fuller, RM, was appointed as Senior Officer Mobile Naval Airfields Organisation (SOMNAO) and this was effectively the beginning of the Mobile Naval Airfields Organisation (MNAO). November saw a proposed structure and size for a MNAO and at the beginning of 1944 the plan for the location of operations was likely to be Ceylon. However, in the spring a British Pacific Fleet was to form and the plan for the location of the operations moved to Australia. On 1 August 1944, the formation of a headquarters for the MNAO and the first two MONABs in the United Kingdom was considered.

The Admiralty had no suitable sites available so the search turned to the Royal Air Force. The Air Ministry proposed the airfield at Ludham, 11 miles (18 km) north east of Norwich, Norfolk. It was agreed to take up the offer of the fighter station to use as an HQ and forming centre, and the Royal Navy started moving into Ludham on 23 August. The station was commissioned on 4 September as HMS Flycatcher, Headquarters Mobile Naval Airfields Organisation.

The Mobile Naval Airfield Organisation (MNAO) was eventually made up of two different types of unit: the Mobile Operational Naval Air Base (MONAB) and the Transportable Aircraft Maintenance Yard (TAMY).