RAF Tarrant Rushton

50.8509, -2.0762 — view on OpenStreetMap ↗

About

RAF Tarrant Rushton opened in Dorset in 1943 as an airborne-forces station. Its Handley Page Halifax tugs and Airspeed Horsa and General Aircraft Hamilcar gliders carried the troops of the 6th Airborne Division — including the coup-de-main party that seized Pegasus Bridge in the first minutes of D-Day, the first Allied troops to land in occupied France. After the war it was home for thirty years to Flight Refuelling Ltd, which flew Berlin Airlift sorties and developed air-to-air refuelling from the field. It closed in 1980.

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

Photographs

Oblique air photo of RAF Tarrant Rushton, looking Northeast to Southwest
ⓘ licence & creditRoyal Air Force / Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons — https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:RAF_Tarrant_Rushton_-_Airphoto.jpgView source & full licence →
IWM caption : Operation MALLARD : aircraft prepared for the reinforcement of the British airborne assault, assembled at Tarrant Rushton, Hampshire, on the afternoon of 6 June. On the runway are General Aircraft Hamilcar heavy lift gliders, preceded by two Airspeed Horsa troop-carrying gliders, while parked on each side of them are Handley Page Halifax glider-tugs of Nos. 298 and 644 Squadrons RAF.
ⓘ licence & creditRoyal Air Force official photographer / Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons — https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Operation_Mallard_gliders_and_tugs_RAF_Tarrant_Rushton_June_1944_IWM_CL_26.jpgView source & full licence →
Bales lining runway - Tarrant Rushton airfield This is on the site of Tarrant Rushton airfield, a base used in WWII and now returned to farming. Please see other photos for this area. Runways, etc are still quite clearly marked on the maps.
ⓘ licence & creditToby / CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons — https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Bales_lining_runway_-_Tarrant_Rushton_airfield_-_geograph.org.uk_-_322109.jpgView source & full licence →

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