RAF Kingston Bagpuize

51.6686, -1.4066 — view on OpenStreetMap ↗
Photograph of RAF Kingston Bagpuize
ⓘ licence & creditMotacilla / CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons — https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:KingstonBagpuize_StJohnBaptist.JPG

About

RAF Kingston Bagpuize in Oxfordshire opened in 1941 and served not as an operational station but as a relief landing ground and a training and maintenance site. Elementary, advanced and glider training units used its airfield, a maintenance unit handled aircraft, and in 1944 it was taken over by the USAAF as Station 403. Among its more unusual tasks was trials work on Sommerfeld wire-mesh track, the portable runway surfacing being developed for the temporary invasion airfields. Flying ended in the 1950s and the site has largely returned to farming and light industry, though the control tower and some wartime huts survive.

Sources: This page was compiled from publicly available historical sources, including Kingston Bagpuize — Airfields of Britain Conservation Trust and RAF Kingston Bagpuize — Wikipedia. The text is original and has been written from factual source material; no source text has been copied unless specifically quoted and attributed.

Photographs

Aerial photograph of Kingston Bagpuize airfield the control tower is left of the runway intersection, 8 March 1944. Photograph taken by 7th Photographic Reconnaissance Group. USAAF, sortie number US/7PH/GP/LOC208. English Heritage (USAAF Photography).
ⓘ licence & creditUnited States Army Air Forces / Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons — https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:RAF_Kingston_Bagpuize_-_8_Mar_1944.jpgView source & full licence →

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