Royal Air Force Hampstead Norris or more simply RAF Hampstead Norris 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 ...

satellite station A broadcast relay station, also known as a satellite station, relay transmitter, broadcast translator (U.S.), re-broadcaster (Canada), repeater (two-way radio) or complementary station (Mexico), is a broadcast transmitter which repeats (or tran ...

located north east of

Hampstead Norreys Hampstead Norreys (alternatively spelt ''Hampstead Norris'' as it is pronounced) is a village and civil parish in Berkshire, England. It is centred on the River Pang, north of Newbury. As well as the nucleus of Hampstead Norreys, the parish i ...

Berkshire Berkshire ( ; abbreviated ), officially the Royal County of Berkshire, is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in South East England. It is bordered by Oxfordshire to the north, Buckinghamshire to the north-east, Greater London ...

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 ...

and north west of

Reading Reading is the process of taking in the sense or meaning of symbols, often specifically those of a written language, by means of Visual perception, sight or Somatosensory system, touch. For educators and researchers, reading is a multifacete ...

, Berkshire.

Station history

The construction contract was awarded to Wimpey in May 1940 valued at £233,000. It was opened in mid 1940. Unusually the runways met at a single point, an obvious target to disable the entire airfield.

Based units

No. 15 Operational Training Unit relocated to Hampstead Norris on 1 June 1940. The airfield hosted a number of squadrons of

Vickers Wellington The Vickers Wellington (nicknamed the Wimpy) is a British twin-engined, long-range medium bomber. It was designed during the mid-1930s at Brooklands in Weybridge, Surrey. Led by Vickers-Armstrongs' chief designer Rex Pierson, a key feature of t ...

bombers. The airfield was used extensively as a glider training station during the latter part of the war, many glider pilots were trained here in preparation for

D-Day The Normandy landings were the landing operations and associated airborne operations on 6 June 1944 of the Allied invasion of Normandy in Operation Overlord during the Second World War. Codenamed Operation Neptune and often referred to as ...

. It also had 33

de Havilland Tiger Moth The de Havilland DH.82 Tiger Moth is a 1930s British biplane designed by Geoffrey de Havilland and built by the de Havilland, de Havilland Aircraft Company. It was operated by the Royal Air Force (RAF) and other operators as a primary traine ...

s as training aircraft. The main role of the airfield was to ferry Wellingtons to

Egypt Egypt ( , ), officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, is a country spanning the Northeast Africa, northeast corner of Africa and Western Asia, southwest corner of Asia via the Sinai Peninsula. It is bordered by the Mediterranean Sea to northe ...

, via

Gibraltar Gibraltar ( , ) is a British Overseas Territories, British Overseas Territory and British overseas cities, city located at the southern tip of the Iberian Peninsula, on the Bay of Gibraltar, near the exit of the Mediterranean Sea into the A ...

and

Malta Malta, officially the Republic of Malta, is an island country in Southern Europe located in the Mediterranean Sea, between Sicily and North Africa. It consists of an archipelago south of Italy, east of Tunisia, and north of Libya. The two ...

. On 15 March 1945

No. 13 OTU Royal Air Force Operational Training Units (OTUs) were training units that prepared aircrew for operations on a particular type or types of aircraft or roles. OTUs ;No. 1 (Coastal) Operational Training Unit RAF (1 (C)OTU): The Unit was formed i ...

arrived with their

de Havilland Mosquito The de Havilland DH.98 Mosquito is a British twin-engined, multirole combat aircraft, introduced during the World War II, Second World War. Unusual in that its airframe was constructed mostly of wood, it was nicknamed the "Wooden Wonder", or " ...

es and the airfield reverted to being a satellite of

RAF Harwell Royal Air Force Harwell or more simply RAF Harwell is a former Royal Air Force station, near the village of Harwell, located south east of Wantage, Oxfordshire and north west of Reading, Berkshire, England. The site is now the Harwell Sc ...

. The following units also were here at some point: * Detachment of No. 42 OTU (June 1944) *

No. 1516 (Beam Approach Training) Flight RAF This is a List of Beam Approach beacon system Units of the Royal Air Force. The first system to guide RAF aircraft safely down onto a runway was called the Standard Blind Approach (SBA) system and was trialled in the late 1930s. It was also bein ...

(December 1942 - April 1943) * No. 1526 (Beam Approach Training) Flight RAF (February - November 1944) *

Operational and Refresher Training Unit RAF No. 240 Operational Conversion Unit RAF is a former Royal Air Force Operational conversion unit which was formed by a series of mergers, it then became No. 27 Squadron RAF in 1993. 240 OCU 240 OCU was formed on 5 January 1948 within No. 4 Gro ...

It became an ammunition storage depot as part of the Bramley Central Ammunition Depot near

Basingstoke Basingstoke ( ) is a town in Hampshire, situated in south-central England across a valley at the source of the River Loddon on the western edge of the North Downs. It is the largest settlement in Hampshire without city status in the United King ...

after its closure in 1946.Ownership by the Admiralty is mentioned in Hansard; HC Deb 9 July 1947 vol 439 c224W

Enemy action

The site was bombed on 16 September 1940 by the

Luftwaffe The Luftwaffe () was the aerial warfare, aerial-warfare branch of the before and during World War II. German Empire, Germany's military air arms during World War I, the of the Imperial German Army, Imperial Army and the of the Imperial Ge ...

in the

Battle of Britain The Battle of Britain () was a military campaign of the Second World War, in which the Royal Air Force (RAF) and the Fleet Air Arm (FAA) of the Royal Navy defended the United Kingdom (UK) against large-scale attacks by Nazi Germany's air force ...

. Three bombs fell on the runways. On 4 March 1941 a Wellington was attacked by a German fighter as it approached to land. The airfield was attacked on 12 May 1941 with 10 High Explosive bombs and 100 Incendiaries. One Wellington was destroyed and the

flare path ''Flare Path'' is a play by Terence Rattigan, written in 1941 and first staged in 1942.Darlow, Michael"Terence Rattigan, Biography – War", ''Official Terence Rattigan website''. Retrieved 2011-02-22. Set in a hotel near an RAF Bomber Command ...

and the southern taxiway were damaged.

Current use

Little of the wartime station now remains. There are four remaining pillboxes and some air raid shelters in the woods. Part of the bomb storage site remains also. The site still maintains a modern link with aviation with a farm strip used by a Tiger Moth biplane. A light beacon is also situated on the edge of an old airfield peri track as the site is under the flightpath of aircraft flying to and from

Heathrow Heathrow Airport , also colloquially known as London Heathrow Airport and named ''London Airport'' until 1966, is the primary and largest international airport serving London, the capital and most populous city of England and the United Kingdo ...

airport on Airway Green One. An important VOR beacon, Compton (CPT), is also located here. It is now known as Haw Farm, part of the Yattendon Estate.

References

Citations

Bibliography

* * {{DEFAULTSORT:Hampstead Norris Royal Air Force stations in Berkshire Royal Air Force stations of World War II in the United Kingdom Military airbases established in 1940 Military airbases closed in 1946