RAF Chedburgh

RAF Chedburgh was a wartime airfield in Suffolk, a few miles south-west of Bury St Edmunds, which opened in September 1942 as a bomber station within No. 3 Group of RAF Bomber Command. A satellite of nearby RAF Stradishall, it had paved runways and was built to take the four-engined heavy bombers then coming into service.

Its first resident was No. 214 Squadron, which operated Short Stirlings from the station in 1942-43. Over the following years Chedburgh hosted a succession of units, including No. 620 Squadron, the Polish-manned No. 301 and No. 304 Squadrons, and later No. 218 Squadron. From late 1943 it also served as a training base, home to No. 1653 Heavy Conversion Unit, which prepared crews for heavy bomber operations. Among the airmen who flew from Chedburgh was the Canadian pilot Murray Peden, who later recorded his experiences of the bombing campaign against Germany.

The airfield outlived the war but was wound down in the late 1940s and finally closed in the early 1950s. The site was subsequently given over to farmland and commercial use; part of it became the Bury Road Business Park, and a fertiliser production plant now occupies much of the former aerodrome.