RAF Ibsley

RAF Ibsley lay in the Avon valley of Hampshire, a couple of miles north of Ringwood, and opened in February 1941 as a Fighter Command station in No. 10 Group. Through the middle years of the war it was a busy Spitfire and Hurricane base — Nos. 32 and 118 Squadrons were among many fighter units to operate from it — and from 1942 it was also used by the United States Army Air Forces as Station 347, hosting Lockheed P-38 Lightning and Republic P-47 Thunderbolt groups that supported the build-up to D-Day. Its grass expanse stood in for a wartime fighter station in the 1942 film “The First of the Few.” After the war the airfield passed briefly to Transport Command before closing in the late 1940s. Gravel extraction has since turned much of the site into a chain of lakes and a nature reserve, though the derelict control tower survives and is due to be restored.