RAF Goxhill

RAF Goxhill opened on 25 June 1941 on the south bank of the Humber Estuary in north Lincolnshire, close to the village of Goxhill. It began life under RAF Bomber Command’s No. 1 Group, but its bomber career was brief; from late 1941 it passed to Fighter Command’s No. 12 Group, hosting Westland Lysanders on target-towing duties and, over the winter of 1941-42, the Spitfires of No. 616 Squadron.

The station’s lasting significance came after it was handed to the United States Army Air Forces, becoming USAAF Station 345. General Dwight D. Eisenhower attended the takeover ceremony in August 1942. Goxhill served chiefly as a training and fighter-familiarisation base where newly arrived American pilots converted to European conditions. A long succession of fighter groups passed through, flying P-38 Lightnings, P-39 Airacobras, P-47 Thunderbolts and, later, P-51 Mustangs, with the 496th Fighter Training Group alone preparing well over two thousand pilots.

The airfield closed on 14 December 1953. Much of the site reverted to agriculture and light industry, though many wartime buildings survived. Its control tower was later dismantled and rebuilt at the Military Aviation Museum in Virginia, in the United States.