RAF Ludford Magna

RAF Ludford Magna stood high on the Lincolnshire Wolds — at over 400 feet it is often called the highest bomber airfield in England — and opened in June 1943 as a No. 1 Group station. For its entire operational life it was home to a single unit, No. 101 Squadron, flying Avro Lancasters from June 1943 until the autumn of 1945.

No. 101 was no ordinary bomber squadron. Its aircraft carried a secret radio-countermeasures system known as Airborne Cigar, or ABC, worked by an eighth crew member who spoke German and could jam the Luftwaffe night-fighter control frequencies. Because ABC aircraft flew on every major raid regardless of their own group’s targets, No. 101 was in the air more often than almost any other squadron, and suffered accordingly: 113 of its Lancasters failed to return, the heaviest loss of any single squadron in Bomber Command. Ludford Magna was also one of the handful of airfields fitted with FIDO, the petrol-burning installation that dispersed fog along the runway to let aircraft land in bad weather.

The station closed after the war but was reactivated between 1958 and 1963 to operate Thor nuclear missiles, the concrete launch pads for which can still be traced on the site.