RAF Gransden Lodge

RAF Gransden Lodge was a wartime airfield in Cambridgeshire, lying near the village of Great Gransden roughly ten miles to the west of Cambridge. It opened in 1942 and served Bomber Command throughout the conflict, most significantly as part of No. 8 (Pathfinder Force) Group, the specialist formation whose crews located and marked targets ahead of the main bomber stream.

The station’s best-known resident was No. 405 (Vancouver) Squadron RCAF, which arrived in 1943 flying Handley Page Halifaxes and later converting to the Avro Lancaster. It was joined over time by a varied succession of units, including No. 142 and No. 692 Squadrons operating de Havilland Mosquitoes, No. 97 Squadron on Lancasters, and No. 192 Squadron, whose Wellingtons, Halifaxes and Mosquitoes were engaged in electronic and radio-countermeasures work. In all, eight operational squadrons passed through the airfield, alongside several smaller specialist flights.

Flying wound down after the war, with the last squadron leaving in 1946. The site went on to host a notable early postwar motor race before settling into agricultural use. Part of the former airfield endures today as a gliding and general aviation site, home to the Cambridge Gliding Centre.