RAF Down Ampney

RAF Down Ampney opened in February 1944 in Gloucestershire, near the Wiltshire border and the town of Cricklade. Built late in the war, it served as a Transport Command airfield dedicated to airborne forces support rather than the bombing campaign, and its three hard runways made it a substantial base for the glider and supply operations being planned for the invasion of Europe.

The station’s principal residents were No. 48 and No. 271 Squadrons, both flying Douglas Dakotas, with Canadian transport units and parachute formations also passing through. From here the squadrons towed Airspeed Horsa gliders and dropped paratroops of the 3rd Parachute Brigade over Normandy on D-Day in June 1944, and they returned the wounded from forward landing grounds on casualty-evacuation flights. The aircraft went on to take part in the Arnhem landings of Operation Market Garden and, later, the airborne crossing of the Rhine.

Down Ampney is most closely linked with Flight Lieutenant David Lord of No. 271 Squadron, who was killed re-supplying the beleaguered 1st Airborne Division at Arnhem on 19 September 1944 and was posthumously awarded the Victoria Cross. The airfield closed in February 1947, and the site has since reverted largely to farmland, with a memorial near the former main runway commemorating those who flew from it.