RAF Warboys 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 ...
heavy bomber
station, situated just outside the village of
Warboys
Warboys is a large village and civil parish in the Huntingdonshire district of Cambridgeshire, England, north-east of Huntingdon.
Geology
Igneous diorite rocks are located around 171–217 meters below ground at Warboys. Discovered in the ...
in
Huntingdonshire
Huntingdonshire (; abbreviated Hunts) is a non-metropolitan district of Cambridgeshire and a historic county of England. The district council is based in Huntingdon. Other towns include St Ives, Godmanchester, St Neots and Ramsey. The popu ...
(now
Cambridgeshire
Cambridgeshire (abbreviated Cambs.) is a county in the East of England, bordering Lincolnshire to the north, Norfolk to the north-east, Suffolk to the east, Essex and Hertfordshire to the south, and Bedfordshire and Northamptonshire to the ...
).
History
During the early years of the war, Warboys was a relatively conventional bomber station which was supplemented with the addition of an exceptionally long main
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 ...
measuring . Construction of this runway resulted in the closure of the nearby road to
Huntingdon
Huntingdon is a market town in the Huntingdonshire district in Cambridgeshire, England. The town was given its town charter by King John in 1205. It was the county town of the historic county of Huntingdonshire. Oliver Cromwell was born there ...
(Church Road) during the war years, necessitating the construction of a bypass road, still in use (2015) as part of the A141. The extension to the runway is still clearly visible, on Google Earth, as crop marks between the old and new roads.
The station was allocated to
No.3 Group in August 1942. RAF Warboys became one of the original
Pathfinder
Pathfinder may refer to:
Businesses
* Pathfinder Energy Services, a division of Smith International
* Pathfinder Press, a publisher of socialist literature
Computing and information science
* Path Finder, a Macintosh file browser
* Pathfinder ( ...
Force stations.
The construction of Warboys began in 1940. The airfield was built to relieve the congestion at RAF Upwood for the use of
No. 17 Operational Training Unit (No. 17 OTU) with
Bristol Blenheim
The Bristol Blenheim is a British light bomber aircraft designed and built by the Bristol Aeroplane Company (Bristol) which was used extensively in the first two years of the Second World War, with examples still being used as trainers until ...
s. The completion of barbed wire around strategic areas, and three AA gun positions with one Vickers gun, were almost finished by 17 May.
The airfield was ready to use at the end of July 1941, and the first squadron to arrive was a detachment of
Short Stirlings from
15 Squadron, arriving from
RAF Wyton
Royal Air Force Wyton or more simply RAF Wyton is a Royal Air Force station near St Ives, Cambridgeshire, England. The airfield is decommissioned and is now home to the Joint Forces Intelligence Group.
History Flying station
Wyton has b ...
. The next unit to arrive was 'D' Flight 17 OTU which was based at
RAF Upwood
Royal Air Force Upwood or more simply RAF Upwood is a former Royal Air Force station adjacent to the village of Upwood, Cambridgeshire, England, in the United Kingdom.
It was a non-flying station which was under the control of the United St ...
and came to Warboys on 15 December. 15 squadron left two days before 17 OTU arrived. The completion of the domestic sites and the new officers' mess and Sergeants' mess were in use about this time. Bad weather held up completion of a lot of the buildings including the Battle Headquarters.
The first fully operational squadron to arrive at Warboys was
156 Squadron on 5 August 1942. The squadron came from
RAF Alconbury
Royal Air Force Alconbury or more simply RAF Alconbury is an active Royal Air Force station near Huntingdon, England. The airfield is in the civil parish of The Stukeleys, close to the villages of Great Stukeley, Little Stukeley, and Alconbur ...
with
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 ...
s; in the new year it re-equipped with
Avro Lancasters.
The first RAF unit at Warboys was
No. 1507 Beam Approach Training for the
RAF Bomber Command, equipped with
Airspeed Oxford
The Airspeed AS.10 Oxford is a twin-engine monoplane aircraft developed and manufactured by Airspeed. It saw widespread use for training British Commonwealth aircrews in navigation, radio-operating, bombing and gunnery roles throughout the Seco ...
s, but was only at Warboys from 13 March to 17 June 1943. After 1507 (BAT) left, the Stirlings, Lancasters,
Handley Page Halifax
The Handley Page Halifax is a British Royal Air Force (RAF) four-engined heavy bomber of the Second World War. It was developed by Handley Page to the same specification as the contemporary twin-engine Avro Manchester.
The Halifax has its orig ...
es and Oxfords of the Pathfinder Force Navigation Training Unit arrived from
RAF Gransden Lodge.
In January 1943, the base converted to
Avro Lancaster bombers, which remained at the site until March 1944, when the aircraft were relocated to nearby
RAF Upwood
Royal Air Force Upwood or more simply RAF Upwood is a former Royal Air Force station adjacent to the village of Upwood, Cambridgeshire, England, in the United Kingdom.
It was a non-flying station which was under the control of the United St ...
. Tests were made on the defence of the base on 31 October 1943 when the Home Guard, from non-local Platoons, attempted to take over the airfield but was unable to do so. The further strengthening of defences was made on 1 March 1944 when
No. 2716 Squadron RAF Regiment took over ten
Bofors
AB Bofors ( , , ) is a former Swedish arms manufacturer which today is part of the British arms concern BAE Systems. The name has been associated with the iron industry and artillery manufacturing for more than 350 years.
History
Located ...
gun sites.
Upwood, which was still having problems with the grass runways, decided to convert to concrete runways, three in total. One of its first squadrons on the new concrete runways was 156 squadron when it left Warboys in March 1944. On 7 March came
No. 1655 (Mosquito) Training Unit which had just come from
RAF Marham. On 8 March, the A.O.C. of the Pathfinder Force, Air Comm. Bennett arrived to inspect the station and the personnel, The small Warboys airfield was getting very busy when on 6 October nineteen Lancasters of
428 squadron arrived from
RAF Middleton St. George after operations over Germany, but by 12 December 1944 1655 (Mosquito) Training Unit left and went to
RAF Upper Heyford
RAF Upper Heyford was a Royal Air Force station located north-west of Bicester near the village of Upper Heyford, Oxfordshire, England. In the Second World War the airfield was used by Bomber Command. During the Cold War, Upper Heyford was one ...
. On 1 January came a smaller unit,
No. 1323 Flight (Automatic Gun Laying Turret) from
RAF Bourn.
VE Day, 8 May 1945, saw big changes at RAF Warboys; the first was Navigation Training Unit that disbanded at the end of June 1945 but was replaced on 22 July by
128 Squadron with the re-equipped
de Havilland Mosquitos from
RAF Wyton
Royal Air Force Wyton or more simply RAF Wyton is a Royal Air Force station near St Ives, Cambridgeshire, England. The airfield is decommissioned and is now home to the Joint Forces Intelligence Group.
History Flying station
Wyton has b ...
. On 28 June arriving from Bourn was
No. 1696 (Bomber) Defence Training Flight.
571 Squadron arrived from Oakington on 20 July equipped with Mosquitos. On 23 July the A.O.C. of 8 Group, AVM J.R. Whitley DSO AFC, came to inspect the station for the final time; he was very impressed.
Warboys was coming to an end and it started with 571 Squadron when it disbanded on 20 September 1945; not long to follow was 1696 (Bomber) Defence Training Flight on 28 September and 1323 (AGLT) Flight was two days after that. 128 Squadron left on 8 October for service on the continent. With only a few communications aircraft left the airfield was strangely quiet. On 15 December 1945 Warboys was placed under a care and maintenance basis with its parent station Upwood.
Over the following years RAF Warboys reverted to agricultural use. The buildings became derelict and the runways and taxiways were gradually broken up. Bloodhound air-defence missiles of 257 squadron were based at Warboys from 1 July 1960 with the return of the Royal Air Force. No accommodation was provided and the operating crews lived at Upwood, which had enough room. By the end of December 1963 the Bloodhounds had been withdrawn and the Royal Air Force relinquished the airfield for the second and last time.
Airfield layout and additional buildings
Located on the north side of the site was the battle headquarters bunker, defended by a pair of mushroom shaped F.C Construction type
pillboxes (also known as Oakington or Fairlop type pillboxes), one of which remains in good condition in 2009.
The airfield's bomb stores were located to the west of the airfield and to the north lay a machine gun butt, used for testing, discharge and alignment of aircraft machine guns.
Domestic, mess and communal sites were dispersed to the south east of the airfield either side of the modern A141 on the borders of the neighbouring village of
Old Hurst. At least 11 separate dispersed locations provided maximum accommodation for 1,959 male and 291 female personnel.
Based units
*
No. 128 Squadron RAF
No. 128 Squadron RAF was a Royal Air Force Squadron formed to be a day bomber unit in World War I and reformed as a fighter unit in World War II.
History
Formation and World War I
No. 128 Squadron Royal Flying Corps was formed on 1 February 1 ...
.
*
No. 156 Squadron RAF.
*
No. 257 Squadron RAF
No. 257 Squadron RAF was a flying squadron of the Royal Air Force active during the First World War, the Second World War and also the Cold War. It was finally disbanded in December 1963.
History
In World War I
No. 257 Squadron was formed at D ...
.
*
No. 571 Squadron RAF
No. 571 Squadron RAF was a Second World War Royal Air Force Pathfinder (RAF), pathfinder squadron operating the de Havilland Mosquito.
History
The squadron was formed on 7 April 1944 at RAF Downham Market, Norfolk to operate the de Havilland Mos ...
.
Post war
In 1960, the former airfield became a
Bristol Bloodhound
The Bristol Bloodhound is a British ramjet powered surface-to-air missile developed during the 1950s. It served as the UK's main air defence weapon into the 1990s and was in large-scale service with the Royal Air Force (RAF) and the forces of ...
air defence missile site, later withdrawn in 1963.
Current use
The site was then sold back into private ownership and returned to largely agricultural use, with a small industrial estate developing on the southern corner of the former runways.
A small part of the airfield is now used by Ramsay Aero Model Club to fly radio controlled model aircraft.
References
Citations
Bibliography
*
External links
History of RAF WarboysPhotographs of the former airfield (taken 2009)
{{DEFAULTSORT:Warboys
Royal Air Force stations in Huntingdonshire
Royal Air Force stations in Cambridgeshire
Royal Air Force stations of World War II in the United Kingdom