RAF Chalgrove

RAF Chalgrove was an airfield in South Oxfordshire, lying a few miles north-north-east of Benson between Oxford and Henley. Built during the Second World War, it opened in late November 1943 and was handed over to the United States Army Air Forces as Station 465, serving primarily as a base for combat photographic reconnaissance.

From early 1944 the field housed the USAAF 10th Reconnaissance Group, flying photo-reconnaissance variants of the Lightning and Mustang (the F-5 and F-6). These units gathered intelligence ahead of and during the Normandy landings, deploying forward to France in the summer of 1944 as the Allied armies advanced. Later occupants included the 25th Bombardment Group’s 653rd Squadron, which operated Mosquito PR.XVI aircraft on weather reconnaissance, and elements of the 7th Reconnaissance Group towards the end of the war.

The Americans relinquished the station to the RAF on 1 December 1945, and active flying duties wound down by 1946. Rather than being abandoned, the site found a lasting new purpose: in July 1946 it was leased to the Martin-Baker Aircraft Company, which has used it ever since for the development and testing of aircraft ejection seats. The airfield remains in operational use today.