RAF Newmarket

RAF Newmarket was among the most unusual of Bomber Command’s stations, for its runway was the Rowley Mile of Newmarket racecourse. The wide, flat expanse of the heath gave one of the longest grass take-off runs in the country — valuable for heavily-laden bombers — and military flying had in fact used the ground as far back as the First World War. In the Second World War it operated under No. 3 Group, latterly as part of the Mildenhall base organisation.

Its best-known unit was No. 99 Squadron, which flew Vickers Wellingtons from the heath in the first years of the war, followed by No. 75 (New Zealand) Squadron on the four-engined Short Stirling. For a time the special-duties Nos. 138 and 161 Squadrons used the field for their early clandestine flights before moving to Tempsford. The site also saw a glimpse of the future when a prototype Gloster Meteor jet carried out taxiing trials here in 1942.

With the war over the racecourse reverted to its proper use; the airfield closed to military flying in the late 1940s, and today the Rowley Mile is once again a place of horses rather than bombers.