RAF Great Dunmow

RAF Great Dunmow was a wartime airfield in Essex, opened on 1 July 1943 and built to the standard Class A heavy-bomber pattern. Its first occupant was an American unit: the United States Army Air Forces’ 386th Bombardment Group (Medium), which flew in from RAF Boxted on 24 September 1943 with Martin B-26 Marauders. Operating its 552nd, 553rd, 554th and 555th Bombardment Squadrons, the group struck enemy airfields, marshalling yards and gun positions before moving on to a base in liberated France in early October 1944.

With the Americans gone, the station passed to RAF transport and airborne-forces work under No. 38 Group. Nos. 190 and 620 Squadrons took up residence, flying Short Stirling Mk IVs and later Handley Page Halifaxes. These units carried paratroops and towed assault gliders, a role central to the major Allied airborne operations of 1944 and 1945.

The airfield closed in the years following the war, with military use ending by the late 1940s. Much of its concrete was later broken up for aggregate during the 1960s, and the land largely returned to farming. A chapel at nearby Little Easton commemorates the American airmen who served there.