Royal Air Force Mount Farm, or more simply RAF Mount Farm, 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 Station may refer to: Agriculture * Station (Australian agriculture), a large Australian landholding used for livestock production * Station (New Zealand agriculture), a large New Zealand farm used for grazing by sheep and cattle ** Cattle statio ...

located north of Dorchester,

Oxfordshire Oxfordshire ( ; abbreviated ''Oxon'') is a ceremonial county in South East England. The county is bordered by Northamptonshire and Warwickshire to the north, Buckinghamshire to the east, Berkshire to the south, and Wiltshire and Glouceste ...

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 ...

History

USAAF use

Mount Farm was originally a satellite airfield for the RAF Photographic Reconnaissance Unit at

RAF Benson Royal Air Force Benson or RAF Benson is a Royal Air Force (RAF) List of Royal Air Force stations, station located at Benson, Oxfordshire, Benson, near Wallingford, Oxfordshire, Wallingford, in South Oxfordshire, England. It is a front-line st ...

. The airfield was originally a grass field, but concrete was laid for runway and aircraft parking purposes and for taxiways. All hangars were the blister type. The airfield became associated with 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 ...

(USAAF) when, in February 1943 it was used by the

Eighth Air Force The Eighth Air Force (Air Forces Strategic) is a numbered air force (NAF) of the United States Air Force's Air Force Global Strike Command (AFGSC). It is headquartered at Barksdale Air Force Base, Louisiana. The command serves as Air Forces S ...

as a photo recon station. Mount Farm was given USAAF designation Station 234 (MF).

7th Photographic Group (Reconnaissance)

The first USAAF unit to use the airfield was the 13th Photographic Squadron of Lockheed F-5 (P-38) Lightning photographic aircraft which moved in for training in March 1943 under the experienced RAF establishment. This was the 13th Photographic Squadron. The need for more photographic reconnaissance of targets by the Eighth Air Force led to other American photo/recon squadrons being assigned to the station and on 7 July 1943, the

7th Photographic Group The United States Air Force's 373d Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance Group is a Twenty-Fifth Air Force unit located at Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson, Alaska. Mission The 373 ISRG is the Department of Defense host service organizat ...

was established at Mount Farm, the group being transferred from Peterson AAF

Colorado Colorado is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States. It is one of the Mountain states, sharing the Four Corners region with Arizona, New Mexico, and Utah. It is also bordered by Wyoming to the north, Nebraska to the northeast, Kansas ...

and absorbing the assets of the 13th photo squadron. The group consisted of the following: * 13th Photographic Squadron (red rudder) * 14th Photographic Squadron (green rudder) * 22nd Photographic Squadron (white rudder) * 27th Photographic Squadron (blue rudder) The group flew a combination of F-5 (P-38),

P-51 The North American Aviation P-51 Mustang is an American long-range, single-seat fighter and fighter-bomber used during World War II and the Korean War, among other conflicts. The Mustang was designed in 1940 by a team headed by James H. Kin ...

and

Spitfire The Supermarine Spitfire is a British single-seat fighter aircraft that was used by the Royal Air Force and other Allied countries before, during, and after World War II. It was the only British fighter produced continuously throughout the ...

XI photo/recon aircraft to obtain information about bombardment targets and damage inflicted by bombardment operations. The group also provided mapping service for air and ground units; observed and reported on enemy transportation, installations, and positions; and obtained data on weather conditions. 7pr-f5

Ace RAF reconnaissance pilot

Adrian Warburton Adrian "Warby" Warburton, (10 March 1918 – 12 April 1944) was a Royal Air Force (RAF) Aviator, pilot and flying ace of the Second World War. He became legendary in the RAF for his role in the defence of Siege of Malta (1940), Malta and was des ...

, attached to the USAAF reconnaissance operations at Mount Farm, and under the command of

Elliott Roosevelt Elliott Roosevelt may refer to: * Elliott Roosevelt (socialite) (1860–1894), American socialite, father-in-law of President Franklin D. Roosevelt, father of Eleanor Roosevelt, younger brother of President Theodore Roosevelt, and grandfather of G ...

, took off from here on April 12, 1944, in an F-5B Lightning for a reconnaissance flight to Schweinfurt, on which he was shot down and killed by flak. Prior to June 1944, the group photographed airfields, cities, industrial establishments, and ports in

France France, officially the French Republic, is a country located primarily in Western Europe. Overseas France, Its overseas regions and territories include French Guiana in South America, Saint Pierre and Miquelon in the Atlantic Ocean#North Atlan ...

, the

Low Countries The Low Countries (; ), historically also known as the Netherlands (), is a coastal lowland region in Northwestern Europe forming the lower Drainage basin, basin of the Rhine–Meuse–Scheldt delta and consisting today of the three modern "Bene ...

, and

Germany Germany, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It lies between the Baltic Sea and the North Sea to the north and the Alps to the south. Its sixteen States of Germany, constituent states have a total popu ...

. Following the

Berlin Berlin ( ; ) is the Capital of Germany, capital and largest city of Germany, by both area and List of cities in Germany by population, population. With 3.7 million inhabitants, it has the List of cities in the European Union by population withi ...

raid in March 1944, Major Walter L Weitner flew the first Eighth Spitfire photo sortie to Berlin on 6 March and by 11 April the Group had chalked up its 1,000th sortie. The 7th received a

Distinguished Unit Citation The Presidential Unit Citation (PUC), originally called the Distinguished Unit Citation, is awarded to units of the uniformed services of the United States, and those of allied countries, for extraordinary heroism in action against an armed e ...

for operations during the period, 31 May - 30 June 1944, when its coverage of bridges, marshalling yards, canals, highways, rivers, and other targets contributed much to the success of the

Normandy campaign Operation Overlord was the codename for the Battle of Normandy, the Allied operation that launched the successful liberation of German-occupied Western Europe during World War II. The operation was launched on 6 June 1944 (D-Day) with the N ...

. The group covered missile sites in France during July, and in August carried out photographic mapping missions for ground forces advancing across France. Provided reconnaissance support for the airborne attack on the Netherlands in September and for 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. On September 12, 1944, a USAAF photo-reconnaissance flight over Germany, flown by pilot John Blyth, ended in a wheels-up landing at Mount Farm. Despite Blyth’s repeated efforts, his Spitfire's landing gear had failed to extend. The landing was filmed by a USAAF flight surgeon and amateur photographer, Jim (“Doc”) Savage. The film clip, along with related material, including Blyth's recollections about the use of Spitfires by the USAAF at Mount Farm, was included in a 2006 documentary entitled “ Spitfire 944.” The documentary received an honourable mention at the 2007 Sundance Film Festival. The 7th used P-51's to escort its own reconnaissance planes during the last months of the war as the group supported the Allied drive across the Rhine and into

. Took part in the final

bomb damage assessment Bomb damage assessment (BDA), also known as battle damage assessment, is the practice of assessing damage inflicted on a target from a stand-off weapon, most typically a bomb or air launched missile. It is part of the larger discipline of combat ...

following

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 7th Recon Group took over three million photographs during the course of its 4,251 sorties. It was transferred to

RAF Chalgrove Chalgrove is a village and civil parish in South Oxfordshire about southeast of Oxford. The parish includes the hamlet of Rofford and the former parish of Warpsgrove with which it merged in 1932. The 2011 Census recorded the parish populati ...

in March 1945, and was later inactivated at the 4th Strategic Air Depot (Hitcham) on 21 November 1945. From here stars including

Bob Hope Leslie Townes "Bob" Hope (May 29, 1903 – July 27, 2003) was an American comedian, actor, entertainer and producer with a career that spanned nearly 80 years and achievements in vaudeville, network radio, television, and USO Tours. He appeared ...

Dorothy Lamour Dorothy Lamour (born Mary Leta Dorothy Slaton; December 10, 1914 – September 22, 1996) was an American actress and singer. She is best remembered for having appeared in the ''Road to...'' movies, a series of successful comedies starring Bing C ...

and

Glenn Miller Alton Glen "Glenn" Miller (March 1, 1904 – December 15, 1944) was an American big band conductor, arranger, composer, trombonist, and recording artist before and during World War II, when he was an officer in the United States Army Air Forces ...

took off to entertain the troops in Europe. Miller performed for the US service personnel at the base in December 1944. From there he went to RAF Twinwood, boarded a

Noorduyn Norseman The Noorduyn Norseman, also known as the C-64 Norseman, is a Canadian single-engine bush plane designed to operate from unimproved surfaces. Distinctive stubby landing gear protrusions from the lower fuselage make it easily recognizable. Intro ...

single-engined aircraft, took off for Paris - and was never seen again. His plane is believed to have ditched in the Channel, although there was a belief up until the late 1970s that he may have crash-landed in the dense Chilterns woodlands. Searches found no trace of the aircraft.

Post-war governmental use

The airfield was transferred back to the RAF on 1 May 1945, and became inactive. After being used for a time by the

Ministry of Supply The Ministry of Supply (MoS) was a department of the UK government formed on 1 August 1939 by the Ministry of Supply Act 1939 ( 2 & 3 Geo. 6. c. 38) to co-ordinate the supply of equipment to all three British armed forces, headed by the Ministe ...

for ex-

War Department War Department may refer to: * War Department (United Kingdom) * United States Department of War The United States Department of War, also called the War Department (and occasionally War Office in the early years), was the United States Cabinet ...

vehicle sales, it was sold by the

Air Ministry The Air Ministry was a department of the Government of the United Kingdom with the responsibility of managing the affairs of the Royal Air Force and civil aviation that existed from 1918 to 1964. It was under the political authority of the ...

in 1957.

Current use

After the end of military control the then Bullingdon Rural District Council redeveloped the site of the RAF and USAAF buildings to build the new village of

Berinsfield Berinsfield is an English village and civil parish in South Oxfordshire, about southeast of Oxford. The 2011 Census recorded the parish population as 2,806. History Palaeolithic and Roman artefacts were found during 20th century excavations ...

. The rest of the airfield was almost completely restored to agricultural use, with little evidence of its wartime past.

References

Citations

Bibliography

* * Freeman, Roger A. (1991) The Mighty Eighth The Colour Record. Cassell & Co. *
mighty8thaf.preller.us Mount Farm

External links

World War II Airfields Of Oxfordshire - Mount Farm

7th Recon Group Aircraft Photo Gallery

Video Footage and Story of Crashed US Pilot Lorton at RAF Mount Farm
{{DEFAULTSORT:Mount Farm Airfields of the VIII Air Service Command in the United Kingdom Royal Air Force stations in Oxfordshire Military installations closed in 1957 Military airbases established in 1940 1940 establishments in England 1957 disestablishments in England