RAF Castle Bromwich

RAF Castle Bromwich lay at Castle Bromwich, Warwickshire, on ground now absorbed into the eastern edge of Birmingham. One of the older British military aerodromes, it dated back to around 1912 and saw heavy use during the First World War as a training base for the Royal Flying Corps and later the Royal Air Force, hosting reserve and training squadrons flying types such as the Avro 504 and B.E.2. Between the wars it became home to No. 605 Squadron, Auxiliary Air Force, which flew aircraft including the Westland Wapiti and Hawker Hart and Hind.

The station’s greatest significance came in the Second World War, when it was best known not as an operational airfield but as a centre of aircraft production. A government shadow factory built alongside the aerodrome turned out the great majority of all Supermarine Spitfires ever made, alongside a batch of Avro Lancaster bombers, with Alex Henshaw serving as chief test pilot. The factory was a target for enemy bombing, and in August 1940 an air raid caused fatalities among the workforce.

After the war the airfield continued in a reduced role before closing in 1958. The site was subsequently redeveloped, the factory passing to motor manufacturing while much of the land became the Castle Vale housing estate.