RAF Ford

RAF Ford lay near the village of Ford in West Sussex, between Arundel and Littlehampton on the south coast. Aviation began on the site in March 1918 as a Royal Flying Corps landing ground, and after a quiet interwar spell the airfield passed to the Fleet Air Arm in 1939 for observer and torpedo training. It was returned to the Royal Air Force in October 1940 and brought into No. 11 Group of Fighter Command, the formation that guarded the approaches to London and the south-east.

On 18 August 1940, during the period later remembered as one of the hardest days of the Battle of Britain, Ford was struck by a heavy raid of Junkers Ju 87 dive-bombers that killed and wounded many on the ground and destroyed numerous aircraft and buildings. The station recovered and went on to host a wide range of fighter, night-fighter and intruder squadrons flying types such as the Supermarine Spitfire, Hawker Hurricane and Douglas Havoc, among them several Polish and Commonwealth units.

In the summer of 1945 the airfield reverted once more to naval control, and in 1951 it became home to the Royal Navy’s first jet fighter squadron, equipped with the Supermarine Attacker. Military flying ended in the late 1950s. The site is now occupied in part by an open prison together with light industry and other civilian uses.