Royal Air Force Wing or more simply RAF Wing 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) and ...
Bomber Command Operational Training Unit
station, situated just west of the village of
Wing
A wing is a type of fin that produces lift while moving through air or some other fluid. Accordingly, wings have streamlined cross-sections that are subject to aerodynamic forces and act as airfoils. A wing's aerodynamic efficiency is expres ...
, in the
Aylesbury Vale
The Aylesbury Vale (or Vale of Aylesbury) is a geographical region in Buckinghamshire, England, which is bounded by the Borough of Milton Keynes and South Northamptonshire to the north, Central Bedfordshire and the Borough of Dacorum ( Hertfor ...
district of
Buckinghamshire
Buckinghamshire (), abbreviated Bucks, is a ceremonial county in South East England that borders Greater London to the south-east, Berkshire to the south, Oxfordshire to the west, Northamptonshire to the north, Bedfordshire to the north-ea ...
.
History
Construction
RAF Wing was built on a parcel of land between North Cottesloe and South Cottesloe. Construction included five hangars for the aircraft, three concrete runways, offices, a canteen, rest rooms, blast shelters, ammunition and bomb dumps, radio and telegraph rooms, a library, Link trainer, gunnery and Celestial Navigation training rooms, a chapel, gym, squash court, rugby and football field, tailors, barbers, shoemakers, Post Office, a cinema, and stores.
The main entrance to the airfield was via an already existing farm lane off Cublington Road, where a guardhouse was constructed. This road passed through the Instructional Site and on to the Technical Site. It now leads directly to the airfield memorial (see later item).
Opposite the main entrance is the lane leading to the Communal Site, on which the gym and a few other airfield facilities still survive as business units. The original Church of England chapel has recently been replaced by a metal industrial building, but still sits on the same foundations. The chapel was dedicated on November 1st 1942 by the Bishop of Buckingham, the Right Reverend Philip Eliot, in a service with commanding officers from the overall 92 Group and from RAF Wing. The Bishop was accompanied in the service by Group Captain J.F. Cox who was the Assistant Chaplain General and would in 1943 become appointed as an Honorary Chaplain to the King.
Further down Cublington Road towards the village of Cublington, another entrance gave direct access to hangars and stores at the western end of the main runway and a direct route to the bomb and ammunition dumps.
By 1944, over two and a half thousand personnel were stationed on site - approximately 2000 men and 500 women. Thirteen sites of living quarters were erected and dispersed over a wide area, each with up to 20
Nissen huts
A Nissen hut is a prefabricated steel structure for military use, especially as barracks, made from a half-cylindrical skin of corrugated iron. Designed during the First World War by the American-born, Canadian-British engineer and inventor Majo ...
, some toilets, and one or two air-raid shelters. Members of the
Women's Auxiliary Air Force
The Women's Auxiliary Air Force (WAAF), whose members were referred to as WAAFs (), was the female auxiliary of the Royal Air Force during World War II. Established in 1939, WAAF numbers exceeded 180,000 at its peak strength in 1943, with over 2 ...
had their own site close to Wing village on Cublington Road, much of which can still be seen today. There was also a hospital and mortuary constructed close to
Cublington
Cublington is a village and one of 110 civil parishes within Aylesbury Vale district in Buckinghamshire, England. It is about seven miles (11 km) north of Aylesbury. The village name is Anglo Saxon in origin, and means "Cubbel's estate". ...
that is still partially standing.
A new sewage works was also constructed just south of Cublington Road to serve the airfield and its associated sites. These sewage works still exist today and serve local communities.
Operations
RAF Wing airfield opened on 17 November 1941, although the upgraded runways were not finished and the first flight was not until March 1942. The station was used primarily as a ‘crewing up’ and operational training facility, but Bullseye, Nickel Raids and operational missions were also flown including participation in the majority of the ‘Thousand Bomber Raids’ during which multiple crews and aircraft from the unit were lost.
No. 26 Operational Training Unit RAF for
Bomber Command
Bomber Command is an organisational military unit, generally subordinate to the air force of a country. The best known were in Britain and the United States. A Bomber Command is generally used for strategic bombing (although at times, e.g. during t ...
was formed at Wing on 15 January 1942 as a 2/3 status unit within
No. 7 Group, equipped 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 g ...
s, Avro Ansons and six Hawker Hurricane fighters to train night bomber crews.
The two operational squadrons who came for a short period were
No. 268 Squadron RAF
No. 268 Squadron RAF was a Second World War Royal Air Force squadron that operated the North American Mustang on missions over occupied Europe and in support of the D-Day landings.
History First World War
No.268 Squadron Royal Air Force was orig ...
and
No. 613 Squadron RAF. 613 Squadron arrived on 1 March 1943 with
North American Mustangs, and 268 joined a day later with the same type of aircraft. On 6 March 1943, 268 Squadron left, and 613 Squadron left one day later, going to
RAF Bottisham
Royal Air Force Bottisham or more simply RAF Bottisham is a former Royal Air Force station located east of Cambridge, Cambridgeshire, England.
History
RAF Fighter Command use
RAF Bottisham opened in March 1940 and was first used by bomb-ar ...
.
RAF Cheddington
Royal Air Force Cheddington or more simply RAF Cheddington (also known as RAF Marsworth) is a former Royal Air Force station located south-west of Cheddington, Buckinghamshire, England. The airfield was closed in 1952.
Origins
Cheddington wa ...
opened in March 1942 as the early satellite station to RAF Wing, but this was soon replaced by a dedicated airfield,
RAF Little Horwood which was constructed a few miles north-west of RAF Wing. RAF Little Horwood also housed part of the Special Operations Executive, whose work included building radio devices for the resistance and covert agents and dropping them into occupied Europe. A Q-type decoy airfield was constructed between Wingrave and Rowsham just off the Aylesbury to Wing road to confuse enemy bombers.
In April and May 1945, RAF Wing was given orders to become a key gateway for Operation Exodus, which involved the repatriation of allied prisoners of war from the European theatre. One thousand two hundred and sixty nine flights landed at RAF Wing, bringing back nearly 33,000 allied prisoners of war from over 21 nations. The main aircraft landing were Lancasters, Stirlings and Dakotas, with the operational records recording them coming in so regularly that the landing aircraft were unable to clear the runway before the next one arrived. A plaque commemorating the event now sits on the main airfield memorial.
Nearby activity
The airmen cycled to local pubs in
Wing
A wing is a type of fin that produces lift while moving through air or some other fluid. Accordingly, wings have streamlined cross-sections that are subject to aerodynamic forces and act as airfoils. A wing's aerodynamic efficiency is expres ...
,
Stewkley
Stewkley is a village and civil parish in the Buckinghamshire district of the ceremonial county of Buckinghamshire, England. The village is about east of Winslow and about west of Leighton Buzzard. The civil parish includes the hamlets of No ...
,
Cheddington
Cheddington is a village and civil parish in the Buckinghamshire district of the ceremonial county of Buckinghamshire, England. The parish has an area of . The village is about 6 miles north-east of Aylesbury and three miles north of Tring in Her ...
and
Cublington
Cublington is a village and one of 110 civil parishes within Aylesbury Vale district in Buckinghamshire, England. It is about seven miles (11 km) north of Aylesbury. The village name is Anglo Saxon in origin, and means "Cubbel's estate". ...
in the evenings or to the local train stations in Leighton Buzzard, Winslow and Swanbourne on their days off so they could go home and see their families. Often entertainment was put on at the airfield as well, such as dancing, theatre productions and films shown at the station cinema. Cricket was a regular pastime, hosted at the Rothschild Ascott House between Wing and Leighton Buzzard.
There were also regular dances at Wing and Stewkley village hall, and a wide range of entertainment available in nearby Leighton Buzzard, which housed thousands of other RAF personnel involved with Bletchley Park, RAF Leighton Buzzard (later RAF Stanbridge) and Radar Command Headquarters.
Wartime incidents
*On 12 September 1942, the prototype
Martin-Baker MB 3
The Martin-Baker MB 3 was a British prototype fighter aircraft, developed from Martin-Baker’s earlier private ventures, the MB 1 and the MB 2. The design was notable for its heavy armament of six 20 mm Hispano cannons. The fatal cra ...
fighter, ''R2492'', crashed on its tenth flight after its engine seized shortly after takeoff from RAF Wing at a height of around 100 feet. A crank on one of the
Napier Sabre II's sleeve valves had failed. While trying to land in a field without power, Captain
Valentine Baker
Valentine Baker (also known as Baker Pasha) (1 April 1827 – 17 November 1887), was a British soldier, and a younger brother of Sir Samuel Baker.
Biography
Baker was educated in Gloucester and in Ceylon, and in 1848 entered the Ceylon Rifles ...
(Company manager, aircraft-designer and test pilot) was forced to turn to port and his wing clipped a hay pile, cartwheeled through a hedge and burst into flames on land now occupied by the Aylesbury Vale Golf Club, killing him. A memorial to Captain Valentine ‘Bake’ Baker was installed at the golf club in 2021 after the crash site was discovered by local aviation researchers in December 2020. The memorial consists of a plaque, information board, pieces of wreckage, a commemorative bust and the main function room is now named ‘The Captain Valentine Baker Suite’. The MB 3 had arrived at RAF Wing for trials in August.
*On 5 February 1943, Sergeant Sidney John Dean (1385334) was the Bombardier aboard Wellington Mk.Ic Z8970 which had completed a night training exercise. After the aircraft taxyed to the dispersal and came to a halt, the bombardier left the aircraft by the front underneath exit without the pilots knowledge to place chocks under wheels. He was struck by the port propeller and died of his injuries on the airfield at 0640. Sidney was formally pronounced dead at the RAF Hospital at Halton, Buckinghamshire and his death registered in Aylesbury, Buckinghamshire. He is buried at Saint Andrews Graveyard, Sonning, Berkshire.
*On the night of 3/4 June 1943, a
Vickers Wellington Type 440 B Mk. X bomber, ''HE746'', of 26 OTU,
RAF
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) and ...
, was on a flight from RAF Wing, departing there at 2340 hrs, when it suffered a failure to one of its
Bristol Hercules
The Bristol Hercules is a 14-cylinder two-row radial aircraft engine designed by Sir Roy Fedden and produced by the Bristol Engine Company starting in 1939. It was the most numerous of their single sleeve valve ( Burt-McCollum, or Argyll, typ ...
engines. "The crew advised flying control at
RAF Dumfries
Royal Air Force Dumfries or more simply RAF Dumfries was a former Royal Air Force station located near Dumfries, Dumfries and Galloway Scotland. The airfield opened on 17 June 1940 and was sold in 1960 to a private firm.
The disused airfield ...
of their situation and requested an emergency landing; unfortunately the aircraft crashed 2 miles from the airfield runway." Three of the crew were killed and two others were seriously injured. This aircraft was to become the catalyst for the foundation of the
Dumfries and Galloway Aviation Museum
The Dumfries and Galloway Aviation Museum is a volunteer-operated aviation museum located in and around the World War II-era watch tower (control tower) at the former RAF Dumfries, located two miles north east of the centre of Dumfries, Scotlan ...
.
*On the night of 23 September 1943, B-17 Flying Fortress 42-3449 WW-X piloted by Immanuel J Klette (Manny Klette) crashed in a wood just short of the RAF Wing runway, while returning battled damaged from flak, on one engine and with little fuel after a bombing mission to Nantes, France. The crew survived, but Klette and his Navigator were badly injured. Rehabilitated at RAF Halton and at the Churchill Hospital Oxford, Lt. Col Klette went on to fly more missions than any other USAAF bomber pilot and was buried with full military hours at Arlington Cemetery. A plaque to the incident has been mounted in the private wood by the landowner and an aviation researcher.
*One of the five hangars was destroyed when Wellington HE854 crashed on 9 June 1944 while taking off to complete a flying test, killing its two crew (Harry Wilkes DFM 156139 & Francis ‘Dickie’ Hubbard 161253), two WAAFs (Emily Dickens 2021702 & Ann Reeves 2025511) and a male member of maintenance unit crew (Corporal Harold ‘Frank’ Hoare 32810). Two Wellington aircraft (HE854 & HE786) were destroyed in the subsequent fire along with a Queen Mary transporter that had a Tomahawk fighter on its trailer.
Closure
RAF Wing was closed 4 April 1956.
After closure
Soon after closing, all the hangars were removed. In the late 1950s, a large
battery chicken
Intensive animal farming or industrial livestock production, also known by its opponents as factory farming and macro-farms, is a type of intensive agriculture, specifically an approach to animal husbandry designed to maximize production, while ...
farm was built on the northern end of the north-south runway. In the early 1960s, a large pig breeding farm, operated by Anglian Pig Breeders, was established on the airfield, occupying some of the old RAF buildings: new sheds were erected on the sites of old hangars and large open air pig pens in other areas of the airfield. This farm ceased trading in the mid 1960s. During this period, a section of runway at the south eastern side of the airfield was dug up and removed. A model aircraft club used the western end of the main runway in the 1960s, but that too was dug up and removed a few years later. The control tower, located south of the east-west runway, remained in a derelict state for many years before being demolished in the 1970s. In the 1980s part of the airfield was used as a testing station for containers of oxygen and other gases.
RAF Wing Memorial
In June 2021, Greg Smith (Member of Parliament for Buckingham) and Lynn Taylor Overend (daughter of RAF Wing veteran and Physical Training Instructor Eric Taylor) unveiled a memorial to those who served and flew at RAF Wing. The three walled brick built memorial sits by the perimeter track where the main parades took place, and just across from the old main runway. It has individual aluminium plaques to No.26 Operational Training Unit, to the final take off site of Captain Valentine Baker and the ill fated Martin Baker MB3 aircraft in 1942 and to the major repatriation role played by the airfield in 1945 in Operation Exodus. The memorial site was donated by an airfield farmer, the project funded by the local citizen and business community and led by local resident Nick Ellins and the Aircrew Remembrance Society. Remembrance plaques are also mounted on the memorial fence to those killed at the airfield itself, including to Sergeant Sidney John Dean who died nearby in February 1943 (see Wartime Incidents above) and to the five killed nearby, when Wellington HE854 crashed in June 1944. Two aircrew, two WAAFs and one male ground personnel were killed in the incident - See Wartime Incidents.
A further remembrance plaque, bust and information board have been installed by Nick Ellins, the Martin-Baker Aircraft Company and the Aylesbury Vale Golf Club at the nearby crash site of Captain Valentine Baker and the Martin-Baker MB3, and another by Nick Ellins and farmer Henry Hunt at the 1943 crash site of the B-17 Flying Fortress piloted by legendary American aviator Immanuel J Klette - See Wartime Incidents.
London Airport
In the late 1960s the former airfield was considered for the site of the third London Airport following a publication of a report by the
Roskill Commission
The Roskill Commission (formally the Commission on the Third London Airport) was a UK Government Commission charged with looking into finding a site for a new airport for London. Chaired by High Court judge Eustace Roskill, it sat from 1968 to ...
.
[ 20 Feb 2014] Wing (officially referred to as Cublington in the report), was considered to be ideally situated for access from all parts of the country and only fifty miles from London.
Within a few days of Wing being identified as a possible site a local airport resistance association was formed to oppose the airport.
[ 20 Feb 2014] A public inquiry was opened at Aylesbury on 14 July 1969 after a protest by 2,000 people through Aylesbury.
[ 20 Feb 2014] As a result of the protest and also revised government thinking, the new airport plan was abandoned. As a permanent celebration of the victory, Buckinghamshire County Council planted a spinney of over 400 trees on a 3-acre site that would have been at the centre of the airport.
RAF units and aircraft
Modern day
Most of the former airfield has been returned to agriculture.
As of 2018, all ex RAF buildings on the airfield site have been removed apart from the former gymnasium and outbuildings at the Communal Site, parts of the hospital and mortuary infrastructure at the Sick Quarters site, store and transport workshop buildings located by South Tinkers Hole Farm used by the old pig farm and parts of the incendiary and bomb facility known as the Bomb Store. Of the original runways (that have not been built on) approximately half of the main runway still exists; its eastern end used as an articulated lorry trailer park. A few Sections of the slabbed concrete perimeter road and taxiways still exist and the airfield memorial now sits on one. The old ammunition dump, just north of the western end of the main runway, is now a private ornamental lake. Opposite the main airfield entrance on Cublington Road is a lane leading to the gym. This building is still in existence and there is a sign on Cublington Road that reads: 'The Old Gymnasium'. Further down Cublington Road towards the village of Cublington are the remains of barracks that were built near the sewage works, with the concrete bases of all eight barrack buildings and concrete pathways still there.
Motto
The motto written on the Navigation Section at Wing was "MAN IS NOT LOST". Someone had written graffiti underneath this: "But occasionally is completely unaware of his exact location".
References
Citations
Bibliography
*
*
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Wing
Royal Air Force stations in Buckinghamshire
Royal Air Force stations of World War II in the United Kingdom