RAF Harrington

RAF Harrington, near Kettering in Northamptonshire, was one of the last airfields built for the United States Army Air Forces in Britain, completed only in the spring of 1944 and known as Station 179. Far from being an ordinary bomber base, it became the home of the “Carpetbaggers” — the clandestine 801st Bombardment Group, later renumbered the 492nd — who flew matt-black B-24 Liberators on moonlit nights to drop secret agents, weapons and supplies to the resistance movements of occupied Europe. The work was secret and dangerous, flown low and alone; the group also dropped propaganda leaflets, and a remarkable share of the German troops captured in France were later found to have read them. When the agent-dropping role wound down in September 1944, Harrington’s aircraft turned to hauling fuel to the advancing armies and to tactical bombing.

The airfield closed soon after the war, but had an unexpected second life from 1959 to 1963 as a launch site for three Thor nuclear missiles, the concrete pads of which earned the site listed status in 2011. The land is now back in farming, and the Carpetbagger Aviation Museum, founded in 1993, tells the story of the secret war flown from here.