Royal Air Force Lymington or more simply RAF Lymington 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 ...

Advanced Landing Ground in

Hampshire Hampshire (, ; abbreviated to Hants.) is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in South East England. It is bordered by Berkshire to the north, Surrey and West Sussex to the east, the Isle of Wight across the Solent to the south, ...

, England. The airfield is located approximately east of

Lymington Lymington is a port town on the west bank of the Lymington River on the Solent, in the New Forest (district), New Forest district of Hampshire, England. The town faces Yarmouth, Isle of Wight, to which there is a Roll-on/roll-off, car ferry s ...

; about southwest of London. Opened in 1944, Lymington was a prototype for the type of temporary Advanced Landing Ground type airfield which would be built in France after D-Day, when the need for advanced landing fields would become urgent as the Allied forces moved east across France and Germany. It was used by the Royal Air Force, Canadian and the United States Army Air Forces. It was closed in 1946 after two years of being utilized as a storage area for the Royal Navy. Today the airfield is a mixture of agricultural fields with a private grass airfield using the North/South runway.

USAAF use

Lymington was known as USAAF Station AAF-551 for security reasons by the USAAF during the war, and by which it was referred to instead of location. Its USAAF Station Code was "LY".

50th Fighter Group

RAF Lymington saw the arrival of the USAAF

50th Fighter Group 5 (five) is a number, numeral and digit. It is the natural number, and cardinal number, following 4 and preceding 6, and is a prime number. Humans, and many other animals, have 5 digits on their limbs. Mathematics 5 is a Fermat pri ...

on 5 April 1944, the group arriving from Orlando AAF,

Florida Florida ( ; ) is a U.S. state, state in the Southeastern United States, Southeastern region of the United States. It borders the Gulf of Mexico to the west, Alabama to the northwest, Georgia (U.S. state), Georgia to the north, the Atlantic ...

. The 50th had the following operational squadrons: * 10th Fighter Squadron (T5) *

81st Fighter Squadron The 81st Fighter Squadron (81 FS) is an inactive squadron of the United States Air Force. It was last assigned to Air Education and Training Command, stationed at Moody Air Force Base, Georgia as a geographically separate unit of the 14th Ope ...

(2N) * 313th Fighter Squadron (W3) The 50th was a group of

Ninth Air Force The Ninth Air Force (Air Forces Central) is a Numbered Air Force of the United States Air Force headquartered at Shaw Air Force Base, South Carolina. It is the Air Force Service Component of United States Central Command (USCENTCOM), a joint D ...

's 84th Fighter Wing,

IX Tactical Air Command The IX Tactical Air Command was a formation of the United States Army Air Forces. It fought in the European theater of World War II. Its last assignment was at Camp Shanks, New York, where it was inactivated on 25 October 1945. History Formed ...

. It flew the

Republic P-47 Thunderbolt The Republic P-47 Thunderbolt is a World War II-era fighter aircraft produced by the American company Republic Aviation from 1941 through 1945. It was a successful high-altitude fighter, and it also served as the foremost American fighter-bombe ...

. The group ended operations at

Giebelstadt Giebelstadt () is a municipality in the district of Würzburg in Bavaria in Germany. History The town is the birthplace of Florian Geyer (1490–1525), also known as "Florian Geier from Giebelstadt", a Franconian nobleman who led the Black Co ...

, Germany in May 1945, and returned to the United States in August.

Civil use

With the facility released from military control in 1946, almost all traces of the former airfield were removed. One of the original blister hangars remains on the standing today adjacent to a private grass airstrip (Pylewell House) overlaid on the site of the former N/S military airfield runway, (31/13). The airfield appears to be closed, with white "X"s shown on the runway ends.

References

Citations

Bibliography

* Freeman, Roger A. (1994) ''UK Airfields of the Ninth: Then and Now 1994''. After the Battle * Freeman, Roger A. (1996) ''The Ninth Air Force in Colour: UK and the Continent-World War Two''. After the Battle * Maurer, Maurer (1983). ''Air Force Combat Units Of World War II''. Maxwell AFB, Alabama: Office of Air Force History. .

External links

Photographs of RAF Lymington from the Geograph British Isles project

{{DEFAULTSORT:Lymington Airfields of the IX Fighter Command in the United Kingdom Royal Air Force stations in Hampshire Military units and formations established in 1943 Military units and formations disestablished in 1945 RAF Lymington Boldre