RAF Fulbeck

RAF Fulbeck was a Royal Air Force station in Lincolnshire, some six miles east of Newark-on-Trent, that opened in 1940. Used at first for flying training and as a satellite field, it passed through several roles before settling into its best-known wartime function as a heavy bomber base.

From late 1943 the airfield was handed to the United States Army Air Forces, whose Ninth Air Force troop carrier groups — among them the 434th, 442nd and 440th Troop Carrier Groups — operated Douglas C-47 and C-53 transports from the site. These units took part in the airborne effort surrounding the Normandy landings and the September 1944 Arnhem operation, Market Garden, ferrying paratroops and towing gliders.

Returned to RAF Bomber Command in No. 5 Group, Fulbeck then hosted No. 49 and No. 189 Squadrons from autumn 1944, both flying Avro Lancasters on operations until the spring of 1945. The station’s wartime service was marred by a serious accident on 22 April 1945, when a Lancaster crashed during a move to RAF Syerston, killing a number of aircrew and ground personnel aboard.

The airfield closed by 1970. Its runways were largely lifted, though stretches of perimeter track survived, and the land returned chiefly to agriculture, with parts of the old surface later put to use for motorsport, including a karting circuit.