RAF Chelveston

RAF Chelveston opened in August 1941 in Northamptonshire, a few miles east of Wellingborough, with its eastern edge spilling over into Bedfordshire. Although built as a Royal Air Force station, its lasting significance came after it was handed to the United States Army Air Forces in 1942. The 60th Troop Carrier Group and its C-47 Skytrains were among the first American arrivals, followed by the heavy bombers that would define the airfield’s wartime career.

From late 1942 the station became home to the 305th Bombardment Group, flying B-17 Flying Fortresses with the Eighth Air Force. The unit was led for a time by Curtis LeMay, who used Chelveston to develop the combat box formations and bombing tactics that shaped American daylight operations over occupied Europe. Crews from the field flew through the costly early raids into Germany, the Normandy landings, Operation Market Garden and the Ardennes fighting of the winter of 1944-45. Two of its airmen, William R. Lawley Jr. and Edward S. Michael, were each awarded the Medal of Honor for bringing crippled aircraft and wounded crews home.

After the war the station saw renewed American use, hosting B-47 Stratojet bomber wings in the 1950s and later RB-66 reconnaissance aircraft, before closing as an active airfield in the early 1960s. The runways were lifted in 1977 and the land returned largely to agriculture; in more recent years much of the former site has been given over to a renewable energy park with solar and wind installations.