RAF Boreham

RAF Boreham was a wartime airfield in Essex, just north-east of Chelmsford, built during 1943 and brought into use early in 1944. Although constructed by the Air Ministry, it was assigned to the United States Army Air Forces as Station 161 and never operated as an RAF flying station in the conventional sense.

Its first occupants were the 394th Bombardment Group of the Ninth Air Force, which flew Martin B-26 Marauder medium bombers from Boreham between March and July 1944. The group concentrated on tactical targets ahead of and during the Normandy landings, attacking bridges, marshalling yards and coastal defences across northern France and the Low Countries. In 1945 the field passed to the 315th Troop Carrier Group, whose Douglas C-47 Skytrains took part in airborne operations including the Rhine crossing of March that year. The station also handled a series of RAF staging and transport units before flying ceased.

Boreham closed in 1946. In the postwar years the site became well known for a different reason, serving as a motor-racing circuit in the early 1950s and then as a Ford Motor Company proving and engineering ground. It later supported police helicopter operations, while much of the original airfield was lost to gravel extraction and agriculture.