OPERATION MARKET GARDEN - THE BATTLE FOR ARNHEM

[Flying10uk]

What is really interesting in the wartime photo of the aerodrome on the Wiki page is how disbursed the Nissan huts, etc. are. Ground staff would have been fit just from walking between the huts and the hangers.

Perhaps the RAF did disperse the buildings more on the airfields that it constructed during WW2, having learnt lessons from the Luftwaffe attacks on RAF airfields in 1940.

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[Paul S.]

Perhaps the RAF did disperse the buildings more on the airfields that it constructed during WW2, having learnt lessons from the Luftwaffe attacks on RAF airfields in 1940.

Definitely. An Aerodrome is a relatively easy target, and having barrack hut areas adjacent to hangers and Ops buildings would not be a good idea.

The photo shows the huts are well dispersed in the woodland and not clustered in one spot. Somebody had his thinking cap on planning that one.

[Flying10uk]

I know of one disused, similarly wartime built, RAF airfield where, as you say say, the buildings are well dispersed. What was the airfield sickbay/hospital is a significant distance from the airfield proper and is built in woodland.

[Gil Boyd]

How ironic we have started talking about RAF Airfields. I bought this rare book recently, as I am studying the operations of 161 Squadron who operated from RAF Tempsford and delivered SOE Agents to France and Germany in WW2. A really good friend has just built by hand a Lysyander at Duxford which is in the paintshop and ready to fly. He built the Blenheim by hand (twice) first one crashed at an airshow and he was in the upper turret and survived, he then built the second one now flying at airshows starting from a cockpit on four wheels in Bristol. He bought it and brought it back to Duxford, luckily it still had many of the controls they had no drawings for inside it....crazy world!

I had to seek out a book that had been printed after WW2 so that I could see the layout of several airfields. Tempsford was a basic building for the issue of parachutes and another "barn" so that the Lysnaders could be undercover.
It was a grass strip for much of the war and lies right alongside the busy A1 road near Sandy in Bedfordshire.
If that runway and buildings could talk!!!
This is without doubt, the best book I have bought in years. It details who built the airfield, how long it was, which squadrons operated from them etc a factual minefield.
I have copied in the cover and what limited facts there are on RAF Tarrant Rushton.

[Gil Boyd]

I have always been of the opinion that disused runways and in particular the control towers should be preserved under a Government Preservation order like they do in Germany.
Many people believe they are but in reality they could be flattened tomorrow if landowners had no conciences!!

[Paul S.]

Gil, having spent many, many hours in control towers, I can tell you they have history. Their walls could tell many, many happy and sad tales if they could talk.

Honestly, Duxford should have an air traffic control museum cataloging its history as aviation and technology changed.

[Flying10uk]

The control tower at the former airfield of Matching Green, Essex, not far from Harlow, is/was still being used to test radar equipment. Or it was still being used for this purpose when I happened to cycle past the site a few years ago.

A short but eventful life, RAF Matching, Essex | Aviation Trails

[Gil Boyd]

How crazy is that. Bought this book as I thought it was All singing and Dancing and Matching Airfield isn't listed. Maybe it is because it was in service for less than a year, but I am surprised!!

[Flying10uk]

Apparently the USAF called it Station 166 and the RAF referred to it as either Matching or Matching Green.

Matching - Airfields of Britain Conservation Trust UK

The "Lost Airfields" books are quite good and I do have the one for Essex so I can look later to see if it is in it.

[Flying10uk]

This is the book that I was thinking of in my previous post and it does devote several pages to Matching airfield. There are similar books for most/many counties of the UK.

A few miles from Matching airfield is the former USAF airfield of Chipping Ongar. It was officially known as Chipping Ongar airfield but nobody ever called it that and they still don't. It has always been know as Willingale airfield which is the name of the village a short distance from the airfield. The interesting aspect of this former airfield is that it was a possible/likely contender for the location of the 3rd London airport but in the end it was decided to locate London's new airport at Stansted, another former Essex, USAF airfield.