RAF East Fortune was first designated as a fighter and airship airfield in 1915 and became a Royal Naval Air Service station in August 1916.

[8] The British airship R34 made the first-ever return flight across the Atlantic and the first east–west crossing by air, flying from East Fortune to Mineola, New York in 1919.

However, it was subsequently decided to develop RAF East Fortune as a night fighter operational training unit (OTU), so on 4 June 1941, No.

This was an RAF Fighter Command unit that gave newly qualified pilots and other aircrew (wireless operator/air gunners or navigators) fresh from RAF Flying Training Command specific training and experience in night-fighting before assignment to operational squadrons as two-man (pilot and navigator/radar operator) crews.

By 1942 the Blenheim was also increasingly obsolescent as a night fighter, but as they had dual controls and were less challenging to fly than the newer Beaufighter they remained useful as trainers.

In late 1944 the OTU began to receive some de Havilland Mosquito aircraft, and by the end of the war this was the main type used.

Thereafter the airfield saw little or no use by the RAF, although it was allocated to the United States Air Force in 1950 as a dispersal base for strategic bombers during the Cold War.

To accommodate such aircraft the main runway was extended to cross the B1347 road, but in the event, East Fortune was never used by the USAF and the site was eventually sold by the Air Ministry in 1960.

East Fortune enjoyed a brief revival as an airfield during the summer of 1961, when Turnhouse Airport was closed for construction work.

As a result, all civilian and military air traffic was diverted through East Fortune, with the airport accommodating the movement of nearly 100,000 passengers.

Subsequently, the hospital primarily provided long-term geriatric care, which became the sole use in 1985 when the last mental health patients left.

Accidents during the Second World War include: Many of the airmen who died flying from RAF East Fortune are buried at St Martin's New Burial Ground in Haddington.

A few weeks later, on 26 May 1961, an RAF Percival Pembroke communications aircraft (serial number WV737) called at East Fortune to drop off two Air Vice-Marshals returning from a NATO meeting in Paris.

Having done so, the crew took off for the short flight to RAF Leuchars, but almost immediately the aircraft suffered an engine fire and had to be crash-landed near North Berwick, East Lothian.

An investigation determined that hydraulic lock had occurred in the port engine, due to the pilot omitting to undertake the required pre-takeoff procedures.