RAF Great Sampford

RAF Great Sampford was a fighter satellite station in north Essex, set in farmland a few miles west of the village it took its name from and within easy reach of Saffron Walden. It opened in April 1942 as a daughter field of nearby RAF Debden, operating under No. 11 Group of Fighter Command. Rather than a permanent base, it served as a forward and dispersal aerodrome, laid out with temporary Sommerfeld Track metal matting rather than concrete runways.

A succession of fighter units passed through during 1942, among them No. 65 (East India) Squadron flying Supermarine Spitfire Mark Vs, together with Nos. 133 and 616 Squadrons. The station also supported American flying when the 4th Fighter Group of the United States Army Air Forces, which had absorbed the RAF’s Eagle Squadrons, made use of it; the field was allotted the USAAF station number 359.

In its later phase the airfield housed a variety of balloon and RAF Regiment units assigned to airfield defence rather than offensive operations. Flying wound down through 1944, and the site was finally relinquished after the war. Returned to agriculture, little survives today beyond fragments of taxiway and a few wartime buildings.