RAF Grove

Lying about a mile north-west of Wantage in what was then Berkshire, Grove was laid out from May 1941 with the standard wartime pattern of three concrete runways and opened in 1942. Its first role was in training: it served Bomber Command’s No. 91 Group as a satellite of No. 15 Operational Training Unit at nearby Harwell, and in 1942 glider pilots from Brize Norton practised there, principally on Armstrong Whitworth Whitleys towing Airspeed Horsa gliders.

In September 1943 the RAF handed Grove over to the United States Army Air Forces, whose Ninth Air Force took it as a staging base for the coming Normandy invasion; for security it was known simply as USAAF Station 519. From August 1943 the 3rd Tactical Air Depot repaired Douglas A-20 Havocs and Northrop P-61 Black Widows on the field, and from the end of October the 31st Transport Group flew Douglas C-47 Skytrains from Grove, shuttling freight and personnel between Ninth Air Force airfields in Britain. Photographic-reconnaissance and bombardment units also used the station in 1945.

The airfield returned to RAF hands in 1946 and was given over to the disposal of surplus aircraft and to equipment storage. From the mid-1950s part of the site was taken over in support of the neighbouring Atomic Energy Research Establishment, and the airfield’s flying days came to an end.