RAF Croughton

RAF Croughton lay in south Northamptonshire, near the village of the same name a few miles from Brackley. The grass airfield was developed in the late 1930s and came into Royal Air Force use around the outbreak of the Second World War, beginning life as a satellite landing ground supporting the larger training station at Upper Heyford. Throughout the war it never operated as a front-line bomber base but instead served the training machinery that kept Bomber Command supplied with crews.

In its earliest wartime years the airfield was attached to No. 16 Operational Training Unit, where aircrew flew types such as the Handley Page Hampden, Bristol Blenheim and Vickers Wellington on night-flying exercises. From 1942 its emphasis shifted to glider instruction, with No. 1 Glider Training School flying General Aircraft Hotspur and Airspeed Horsa gliders. It later hosted advanced flying and beam-approach training, and other units including a Polish training element and No. 20 (Pilots) Advanced Flying Unit passed through. Aircraft used over its lifetime ranged from Miles Masters and Airspeed Oxfords to North American Harvards.

RAF flying use wound down after the war. The site was transferred to American hands around 1950 and remains active today as a United States Air Force communications station rather than an operational airfield.