RAF in Oxfordshire part two K-W.
Still Active
RAF Weston-on-the-Green
Opened: 1918
Although no longer a fully-functioning station, it is still used by the RAF as a drop zone to practise parachuting skills, coming under the control of the nearby Brize Norton, home of No. 1 Parachute Training School.
(Airfield at RAF Weston-on-the-Green)
Dating back the First World War, the site five miles south west of Bicester is little more than a very large field, and for periods during its existence it has been used by aircraft and RAF personnel at Brize Norton, Bicester and Kidlington as a Relief Landing Ground (RLG). During WW2, it was used for glider training, with control post war passing to Upper Heyford, its PTS using it as a drop site. In 1951 it was placed under care and maintenance but a few years’ later the RAF again started using it for parachute training.
Closed
RAF Kelmscott
Opened: 1940
Closed: 1947
The station located around 15 miles north east of Swindon, was little more than two grass strips, but it was used as a training site and a RLG for Watchfield (see below), and also as a training centre for paratroopers ahead of the D-Day landings.
RAF Kiddington
Opened: 1940
Closed: 1945
Another basic grass airstrip located around seven miles south east of Chipping Norton, Kiddington was a RLG used by No. 15 Service Flying Training School (SFTS), Nos. 101 and 102 (Glider) Operational Training Units (OTU), and the Airspeed Oxfords of No. 20 P(AFU) – Pilots Advanced Flying Unit – operating out of RAF Kidlington (see next).
RAF Kidlington
Opened: 1938
Closed: 1951; now Oxford Airport
The station opened a year before the outbreak of WW2, No. 26 Elementary and Reserve Flying Training School (E&RFTS) the first arrivals, but once war began the flying school closed with the site, seven miles north west of Oxford, becoming a satellite for RAF Abingdon, used for a time by the aircraft of No. 6 SFTS (Service Flying Training School) based at Little Rissington, before the more permanent arrival of No. 15 SFTS from RAF Brize Norton, who stayed until 1942.
(Air Traffic Control Tower at Oxford Airport)
In 1951, the final RAF unit at Kidlington, No. 96 MU was disbanded, but the site’s aircraft operations remained, and by the late 1960s it was the second busiest airfield in the UK after Heathrow, a centre for aviation education, charter and maintenance facilities.
RAF Kingston Bagpuize
Opened: 1942
Closed: 1954
Opening early in 1942 as a RLG for No. 3 Elementary Flying Training School (EFTS) based at Shellingford (see below), it was also used for training with gliders and their tugs, and by the Airspeed Oxfords from No. 20 (P)AFU. In January 1944, after the site, six miles west of Abingdon, was upgraded, the USAAF Ninth Air Force moved in, using the airfield for maintenance of aircraft including Lockheed P-38 Lightnings, and also for testing of temporary runway surfaces.
(Aerial photograph of Kingston Bagpuize airfield, 8 March 1944)
In August 1944, the station was handed over to No. 3 MU who used it as a storage site until its closure.
RAF Middle Farm
Opened: 1941
Closed: 1946
One of several Satellite Landing Grounds (SLG) in the county, sites mainly used to disperse aircraft with the aim of minimising the likelihood of air attacks. Middle Farm, located six miles west of Buckingham, was used by No. 8 MU based at Little Rissington in Gloucestershire.
RAF Mount Farm
Opened: 1940
Closed: 1946
Opening as a satellite airfield for the RAF Photographic Reconnaissance Unit (PRU) at Benson, the station six miles south east of Oxford was also utilised by the Fairey Battles of No. 12 OTU, which were later replaced by Wellington bombers, the site particularly busy when Benson was waterlogged.
(RAF Mount Farm Airfield taken on 3 January 1946)
Mount Farm was also used as a satellite for Witney (see below) before the arrival of the USAAF in February 1943 with a range of aircraft including Lightnings, their main focus on reconnaissance operations with the 7th Photographic Unit established at the site. The station returned to the RAF in May 1945 when it was used to store surplus vehicles.
RAF Nuneham Park
Opened: 1942
Closed: 1957
Nuneham House, located around six miles south of Oxford, was requisitioned by the Air Ministry midway through WW2 to be used as a Central Interpretation Unit for air reconnaissance photography, with many image interpreters receiving their training at the house. Pictures from flights originating at Benson and many other airfields were brought to Nuneham, with a number of Nissen huts and other temporary buildings erected next to the mansion to house military personnel, and also a cinema open to locals.
In the mid-1950, the temporary buildings were demolished and the house returned to the Harcourt family.
RFC/RAF Port Meadow
Opened: 1916
Closed: 1919; civil flying continued until the early 1930s
Records of aircraft activity at the site, around two miles north west of Oxford city centre, date back to around 1911, but it was during WWI that Port Meadow became an active station, No. 40 Reserve Squadron flying in from Northolt in August 1916. It was also used as a training station and a Night Landing Ground for No. 78 (Home Defence) Squadron from 1916-1917, flying Royal Aircraft Factory B.E.2 and B.E.12s, before switching to Sopwith 1½ Strutters.
By late 1918, when it had lost its Royal Flying Corps moniker to become RAF Port Meadow, around 70 aircraft were on site with 11 hangars, supported by 800 personnel. Despite the RAF relinquishing Port Meadow in February 1919, the area was still used occasionally by the military as an emergency airfield.
RAF Shellingford
Opened: 1941
Closed: 1957
The station opened initially for night flying before No. 3 EFTS moved there with around 50 Tiger Moths, the site, around 15 miles south west of Oxford, used to train a variety of military personnel, including army pilots who were taught to operate gliders ahead of the D-Day landings.
No. 3 EFTS remained there until 1948, and when they left the station was placed under care and maintenance before reopening under USAF control in the 1950s, used as a centre of air defence for all US bases in the UK.
RAF Slade Farm
Opened: 1940
Closed: 1945
Another SLG, it was in effect a large field around ten miles north of Oxford used for the dispersal of aircraft by several MUs, suitably located close to both Upper Heyford and Weston-on-the-Green (see below). It was also used as a RLG for gliders from Kidlington.
RAF Stanton Harcourt
Opened: 1940
Closed: 1946
Created as a satellite for Abingdon, the station was in the process of being completed when it was attacked by the Luftwaffe which resulted in the deaths of nine workmen. One of the first units to use the site for night training was No. 10 OTU operating Armstrong Whitworth Whitleys, a more permanent move to the location seven miles west of Oxford arriving during 1944 when Abingdon underwent an upgrade.
The station was noteworthy as a departure point for Churchill, who flew from there in January 1943 for the famous Casablanca Conference, a meeting with US President Franklin Roosevelt where the allies plotted the route to recapture the European mainland from the grip of the Nazis.
RAF Starveall Farm
Opened: 1941
Closed: 1945
A site around ten miles north west of Oxford used as a SLG for use by Nos. 33 and 39 MUs for the dispersal of aircraft, notably Spitfires.
RAF Upper Heyford
Opened: 1918
Closed: 1994
A site perhaps more synonymous with the USAF, Upper Heyford was used during WWI as a landing ground before it opened at the end of the Great War, the station being where the Canadian Air Force was formed in November 1918.
It closed for several years in the 1920s, reopening when concerns were raised over the French decision to occupy the Rhineland, later becoming part of Bomber Command, No. 99 Squadron arriving from Bircham Newton in Norfolk in 1928.
Training of bomber crews was the priority at the station, located five miles north west of Bicester, during WW2, and when the grass runways were damaged by the heavier Wellington bombers, they received a concrete upgrade during 1942.
Post war, No. 1 Parachute Training School RAF arrived from RAF Ringway, the station remaining in use as a training facility until 1950, when a rethink by Strategic Air Command saw four locations in the UK selected to counter the perceived threat from the Soviet Union. Along with Upper Heyford and Brize Norton, the other sites were Greenham Common and Fairford, with extensive work carried out at the station which saw its runway upgraded and extended to nearly 2km before it was officially handed over to the USAF on May 15, 1951.
(One of the hardened aircraft shelters at RAF Upper Heyford)
A range of US aircraft operated out of the station for the next 40 years, including the B-52 Stratofortress bomber and the Lockheed U-2 strategic reconnaissance aircraft, the site the launch point for missions including the attack on Libyan targets in April 1986. The end of the ‘first’ Cold War saw the station deemed surplus to USAF requirements, handed back to the MoD in September 1994, areas of the Upper Heyford site sold for housing and other business uses.
RAF Watchfield
Opened: 1940
Closed: 1950; used by the Army for parachute training until the early 1970s
Opening as training station, Watchfield became the home of the Beam Approach School, established to train bomber pilots in the science of ‘blind’ landings, allowing the station to remain in use when weather conditions prohibited other airfields operating. The site, located eight miles north west of Swindon, was also a centre for training air traffic controllers, a role it maintained until 1950.
After it closed as an RAF station in 1950, control passed over to the Army, the site renamed Arnhem Camp and used for parachute training.
RAF Witney
Opened: 1918
Closed: 1949
An aerodrome was built at Witney during WWI, opening in March 1918 before closing two years’ later when the site, around 14 miles north west of Oxford, was made available for civilian flying. At the outbreak of WW2, it was requisitioned by the Air Ministry, used as a RLG for aircraft operating out of Brize Norton, and also utilised by the de Havilland company for aircraft repair and overhaul – the firm leaving the site in the late 1940s.
