RAF Deenethorpe - 401st Bombardment Group Operations Room

Royal Air Force Deenethorpe or more simply RAF Deenethorpe is a former

Royal Air Force The Royal Air Force (RAF) is the Air force, air and space force of the United Kingdom, British Overseas Territories and Crown Dependencies. It was formed towards the end of the World War I, First World War on 1 April 1918, on the merger of t ...

station located east of

Corby Corby is a town and civil parish in the North Northamptonshire district of Northamptonshire, England, northeast of Northampton. In 2021 it had a population of 68,164. From 1974 to 2021, it was the administrative headquarters of the Borough of ...

Northamptonshire Northamptonshire ( ; abbreviated Northants.) is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in the East Midlands of England. It is bordered by Leicestershire, Rutland and Lincolnshire to the north, Cambridgeshire to the east, Bedfordshi ...

England England is a Countries of the United Kingdom, country that is part of the United Kingdom. It is located on the island of Great Britain, of which it covers about 62%, and List of islands of England, more than 100 smaller adjacent islands. It ...

. It has one remaining tarmac runway at 1200m (3937ft) long.

United States Army Air Forces use

Deenethorpe was constructed in 1943 and was allocated to the

United States Army Air Forces The United States Army Air Forces (USAAF or AAF) was the major land-based aerial warfare service component of the United States Army and ''de facto'' aerial warfare service branch of the United States during and immediately after World War II ...

Eighth Air Force. It was assigned USAAF designation Station 128. USAAF Station Units assigned to RAF Deenethorpe were: * 450th Sub-Depot * 431st Air Service Group : 681st Air Materiel Squadron : 857th Air Engineering Squadron * 18th Weather Squadron * 78th Station Complement Squadron * 831st Engineer Aviation Battalion * 1199th Military Police Company * 1209th Quartermaster Company * 1597th Ordnance Supply & Maintenance Company * 861st Chemical Company (Air Operations) * 2095th Engineer Fire Fighting Platoon

401st Bombardment Group (Heavy)

With the opening of the airfield in October 1943, the 401st Bombardment Group (Heavy), arrived from Great Falls AAB,

Montana Montana ( ) is a landlocked U.S. state, state in the Mountain states, Mountain West subregion of the Western United States. It is bordered by Idaho to the west, North Dakota to the east, South Dakota to the southeast, Wyoming to the south, an ...

, in November. The 401st was assigned to the 94th Combat Bombardment Wing of the 1st Bombardment Division. Its tail code was Triangle-S. The 401st Bomb Group consisted of the following operational squadrons flying

Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress The Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress is an American four-engined heavy bomber aircraft developed in the 1930s for the United States Army Air Corps (USAAC). A fast and high-flying bomber, the B-17 dropped more bombs than any other aircraft during ...

: * 612th Bombardment Squadron (SC) * 613th Bombardment Squadron (IN) * 614th Bombardment Squadron (IW) * 615th Bombardment Squadron (IY) The 401st BG operated chiefly against strategic targets, bombing industries, submarine facilities, shipyards, missile sites, marshalling yards, and airfields; beginning in October 1944, concentrated on oil reserves. The Group received a Distinguished Unit Citation for striking telling blows against German aircraft production on 11 January and 20 February 1944. In addition to strategic missions, group operations included attacks on transportation, airfields, and fortifications prior to the Normandy invasion and on D-Day, June 1944; support for ground operations during the breakthrough at

Saint-Lô Saint-Lô (, ; ) is a Communes of France, commune in northwest France, the capital of the Manche department in the region of Normandy (administrative region), Normandy.Brest in August, and the airborne attack on the Netherlands in September 1944. The Group flew missions against enemy forces during the

Battle of the Bulge The Battle of the Bulge, also known as the Ardennes Offensive or Unternehmen Die Wacht am Rhein, Wacht am Rhein, was the last major German Offensive (military), offensive Military campaign, campaign on the Western Front (World War II), Western ...

, December 1944 - January 1945, by assaulting transportation targets and communications centres in the battle area; and support for the airborne attack across the

Rhine The Rhine ( ) is one of the List of rivers of Europe, major rivers in Europe. The river begins in the Swiss canton of Graubünden in the southeastern Swiss Alps. It forms part of the Swiss-Liechtenstein border, then part of the Austria–Swit ...

in March 1945. The worst accident occurred on 5 December 1943 when a Fortress which failed to get off the ground careered over farmland and came to rest after crashing into a cottage on the edge of Deenethorpe village. The surviving members of the crew just had time to evacuate the wreckage and warn the villagers of the imminent explosion of the bomb load before it detonated damaging many houses in the village. The blast was felt in

Kettering Kettering is a market town, market and industrial town, industrial town in the North Northamptonshire district of Northamptonshire, England, west of Cambridge, England, Cambridge, southwest of Peterborough, southeast of Leicester and north- ...

nine miles away. After

V-E Day Victory in Europe Day is the day celebrating the formal acceptance by the Allies of World War II of Germany's unconditional surrender of its armed forces on Tuesday, 8 May 1945; it marked the official surrender of all German military operations ...

, the group departed from Deenethorpe in August 1945 and returned to Sioux Falls AAF where the unit was inactivated, personnel demobilized and B-17 aircraft sent to storage. The 401st Bombardment Group had flown 255 combat missions from Deenethorpe airfield.

Postwar use

After the war, Deenethorpe was used as a RAF Recruiting Centre, and later for several years the

control tower Air traffic control (ATC) is a service provided by ground-based air traffic controllers who direct aircraft on the ground and through a given section of controlled airspace, and can provide advisory services to aircraft in non-controlled a ...

was used as a lookout post by the local Royal Observer Corps. It was finally sold in 1963 and largely returned to agriculture. Part of the old main runway is now used as a private airstrip. The airfield is one of the sites that has been approved for a "garden village" in 2017. The plans include a village green, shops and community hall, as well as more than 1,000 homes. RAF Deenethorpe was recently used as the venue for an illegal rave

Postscript

On 17 June 2011, the widow of an American air crewman who took part in bombing raids from the airfield buried a time capsule on the crew's behalf. Joan Parker was married to Tom Parker, the last surviving crew member of the B-17 ''Lady Luck'' of the 401st Bombardment Squadron."Capsule buried in crew's memory at Deenethorpe airfield" BBC News 17 June 2011, accessed 17 June 2011
/ref> In a ceremony, Mrs. Parker buried eight glass-bottomed tankards along with a story of the men at the airfield. The crew carried out raids on marshalling yards in Berlin. "It was all agreed that whoever was the last one would bring the tankards back to Deenethorpe," she said. "It took some time trying to gather all of the information." The tankards were a gift from the pilot of ''Lady Luck'', Lt. Bob Kamper, who presented them to the crew at a reunion in 1972. Mr. Parker died in March 2011.

References

Citations

Bibliography

* Freeman, Roger A. (1978) Airfields of the Eighth: Then and Now. After the Battle * Freeman, Roger A. (1991) The Mighty Eighth The Colour Record. Cassell & Co. * Maurer, Maurer (1983). Air Force Combat Units Of World War II. Maxwell AFB, Alabama: Office of Air Force History. . * Rogers, Brian (2005). United States Air Force Unit Designations Since 1978. Hinkley, England: Midland Publications. .
www.controltowers.co.uk Deenethorpe

mighty8thaf.preller.us Deenethorpe

External links

401st Bomb Group website

Deenethorpe Today photo album

Historic Deenethorpe photo album
{{DEFAULTSORT:Deenethorpe Airfields of the VIII Bomber Command in the United Kingdom Royal Air Force stations in Northamptonshire