Royal Air Force Harwell or more simply RAF Harwell is a former

Royal Air Force The Royal Air Force (RAF) is the United Kingdom's air and space force. It was formed towards the end of the First World War on 1 April 1918, becoming the first independent air force in the world, by regrouping the Royal Flying Corps (RFC) an ...

station, near the village of Harwell, located south east of

Wantage Wantage () is a historic market town and civil parish in Oxfordshire, England. Although within the boundaries of the historic county of Berkshire, it has been administered as part of the Vale of White Horse district of Oxfordshire since 1974. T ...

, Oxfordshire and north west of

Reading Reading is the process of taking in the sense or meaning of letters, symbols, etc., especially by sight or touch. For educators and researchers, reading is a multifaceted process involving such areas as word recognition, orthography (spelling ...

, Berkshire,

England England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe b ...

. The site is now the

Harwell Science and Innovation Campus The Harwell Science and Innovation Campus is a 700-acre science and technology campus in Oxfordshire, England. Over 6,000 people work there in over 240 public and private sector organisations, working across sectors including Space, Clean Ener ...

which includes the

Rutherford Appleton Laboratory The Rutherford Appleton Laboratory (RAL) is one of the national scientific research laboratories in the UK operated by the Science and Technology Facilities Council (STFC). It began as the Rutherford High Energy Laboratory, merged with the Atlas ...

History

The airfield was built by John Laing & Son Ltd at the junction of three parishes in 1935. The bulk lay within Chilton parish; about a third was in East Hendred; and the smallest portion was in Harwell. The first Commanding Officer, upon being asked what the name of the new airfield should be, responded that it should be named after the parish in which his house lay – and this happened to be Harwell. From its opening in February 1937 until March 1944, various bomber squadrons were stationed at the airfield. On the outbreak of the

Second World War World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposi ...

, it became part of No. 38 Group RAF, initially used for leaflet missions over France using

Vickers Wellington The Vickers Wellington was a British twin-engined, long-range medium bomber. It was designed during the mid-1930s at Brooklands in Weybridge, Surrey. Led by Vickers-Armstrongs' chief designer Rex Pierson; a key feature of the aircraft is its ...

bombers, later bombing raids on Bremen,

Cologne Cologne ( ; german: Köln ; ksh, Kölle ) is the largest city of the German western state of North Rhine-Westphalia (NRW) and the fourth-most populous city of Germany with 1.1 million inhabitants in the city proper and 3.6 millio ...

and Essen. There were numerous

Luftwaffe The ''Luftwaffe'' () was the aerial-warfare branch of the German ''Wehrmacht'' before and during World War II. Germany's military air arms during World War I, the ''Luftstreitkräfte'' of the Imperial Army and the '' Marine-Fliegerabtei ...

raids on the airfield from August 1940 until September 1941. The original grass field was replaced with

concrete Concrete is a composite material composed of fine and coarse aggregate bonded together with a fluid cement (cement paste) that hardens (cures) over time. Concrete is the second-most-used substance in the world after water, and is the most wid ...

runway According to the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO), a runway is a "defined rectangular area on a land aerodrome prepared for the landing and takeoff of aircraft". Runways may be a man-made surface (often asphalt, concre ...

s between July and November 1941. The following squadrons were posted to Harwell: The following units were also here at some point: In March 1944, it was reallocated to 30 Group Airborne Forces, where it mainly operated tug aircraft towing Airspeed Horsa which were used in a number of operations. These included carrying the first glider-borne troops into Normandy to secure vital strategic positions in advance of the main landings on D-Day. A memorial to the men who flew from RAF Harwell who were killed on this operation now exists at one edge of the old airfield site, and a memorial service is held there annually. The airfield was also used briefly for

Special Operations Executive The Special Operations Executive (SOE) was a secret British World War II organisation. It was officially formed on 22 July 1940 under Minister of Economic Warfare Hugh Dalton, from the amalgamation of three existing secret organisations. Its pu ...

(SOE) operations between July and September 1944.

Closure and subsequent use

The RAF station was closed at the end of 1945 and the site transferred to the Ministry of Supply on 1 January 1946, where it became the Atomic Energy Research Establishment. Over the years that reduced in scale and other science-based research moved in, such as the

in 1957. The site is now home to the

References

Citations

Bibliography

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External links

www.atlantikwall.co.uk RAF Harwell

{{DEFAULTSORT:Harwell 1937 establishments in England 1944 disestablishments in England Royal Air Force stations in Oxfordshire Royal Air Force stations of World War II in the United Kingdom