RAF North Weald

RAF North Weald lies in west Essex, on the edge of the village of North Weald Bassett, on ground first ploughed up by the Royal Flying Corps in the summer of 1916 to give London a forward defence against Zeppelin raids. The Home Defence flights that mustered here passed to the new Royal Air Force on 1 April 1918, and through the lean interwar years the station persisted as a fighter base — one of the small handful of grass airfields ringing the capital that survived the post-Armistice contraction.

By the summer of 1940 North Weald had been rebuilt as a Sector Station within No. 11 Group, Fighter Command, controlling its own slice of sky on the approaches to London. Hawker Hurricanes flew from here over the Dunkirk beaches and into the long daylight battles of August and September, with Bristol Blenheim night fighters working the dark hours. The Luftwaffe found the airfield repeatedly that summer; the station continued to operate through and after the raids. Among the squadrons that passed through were the American volunteer Eagle squadrons, flying Supermarine Spitfires from 1940 onwards.

From 1941 North Weald took on a second character as one of the principal homes of the Norwegian fighter contingent in exile. Nos. 331 and 332 Squadrons RAF, both Norwegian-manned and Spitfire-equipped, were based here and flew sweeps over occupied Europe for much of the rest of the war — a connection still marked by ceremonies on the airfield each May.

The jets arrived in 1949. Gloster Meteors and de Havilland Vampires became a familiar sight in the west Essex sky, succeeded in the mid-1950s by the Hawker Hunters of No. 111 Squadron, which flew from North Weald until 1958. RAF flying ceased in 1964 and the site was eventually sold by the Ministry of Defence to the local authority. It remains an active general-aviation aerodrome, busy with light aircraft and a notable concentration of warbird and vintage operators; the 1952 Grade II listed control tower survives, and the North Weald Airfield Museum, housed in the former station office, preserves the airfield’s RFC, Battle of Britain and Norwegian heritage.