RAF Bentwaters

RAF Bentwaters lay in Suffolk, near Woodbridge and the village of Butley, a little east-north-east of Ipswich. It was completed and brought into use in April 1944, and although it briefly came under Bomber Command, its wartime working life was as a fighter station within Fighter Command. From here Spitfires and, later in the war, American-built P-51 Mustangs flew with a succession of day-fighter units, among them Nos. 64, 65, 118, 126, 129, 165, 234 and 245 Squadrons, whose tasks ranged from bomber escort to offensive sweeps over occupied Europe.

After 1945 the airfield remained a flying station, hosting early jet squadrons such as Nos. 56, 74 and 124 equipped with the Gloster Meteor. Its longest and most significant chapter, however, began in 1951, when the base passed to the United States Air Force. For more than four decades it was home to the 81st Fighter Wing, whose aircraft evolved from F-86 Sabres through F-4 Phantoms to the A-10 Thunderbolt II, making Bentwaters a major Cold War installation on the front line of NATO’s air defence.

The Americans departed and the base closed in 1993. The site survives largely intact and has been redeveloped as a business park, with part of it given over to the Bentwaters Cold War Museum, which preserves the airfield’s later history.