Construction RAF Wing was built on a parcel of land between North Cottesloe and South Cottesloe. Construction included five hangars for the aircraft, three concrete runways, offices, a canteen, rest rooms, blast shelters, ammunition and bomb dumps, radio and telegraph rooms, a library, Link trainer, gunnery and Celestial Navigation training rooms, a chapel, gym, squash court, rugby and football field, tailors, barbers, shoemakers, Post Office, a cinema, and stores. The two operational squadrons who came for a short period were
No. 268 Squadron RAF and
No. 613 Squadron RAF. 613 Squadron arrived on 1 March 1943 with
North American Mustangs, and 268 joined a day later with the same type of aircraft. On 6 March 1943, 268 Squadron left, and 613 Squadron left one day later, going to
RAF Bottisham.
RAF Cheddington opened in March 1942 as the early satellite station to RAF Wing, but this was soon replaced by a dedicated airfield,
RAF Little Horwood which was constructed a few miles north-west of RAF Wing. RAF Little Horwood also housed part of the Special Operations Executive, whose work included building radio devices for the resistance and covert agents and dropping them into occupied Europe. A Q-type decoy airfield was constructed between Wingrave and Rowsham just off the Aylesbury to Wing road to confuse enemy bombers. In April and May 1945, RAF Wing was given orders to become a key gateway for Operation Exodus, which involved the repatriation of allied prisoners of war from the European theatre. One thousand two hundred and sixty nine flights landed at RAF Wing, bringing back nearly 33,000 allied prisoners of war from over 21 nations. The main aircraft landing were Lancasters, Stirlings and Dakotas, with the operational records recording them coming in so regularly that the landing aircraft were unable to clear the runway before the next one arrived. A plaque commemorating the event now sits on the main airfield memorial.
Nearby activity The airmen cycled to local pubs in
Wing,
Stewkley,
Cheddington and
Cublington in the evenings or to the local train stations in Leighton Buzzard, Winslow and Swanbourne on their days off so they could go home and see their families. Often entertainment was put on at the airfield as well, such as dancing, theatre productions and films shown at the station cinema. Cricket was a regular pastime, hosted at the Rothschild Ascott House between Wing and Leighton Buzzard. There were also regular dances at Wing and Stewkley village hall, and a wide range of entertainment available in nearby Leighton Buzzard, which housed thousands of other RAF personnel involved with Bletchley Park, RAF Leighton Buzzard (later RAF Stanbridge) and Radar Command Headquarters. The MB 3 had arrived at RAF Wing for trials in August. Three of the crew were killed and two others were seriously injured. This aircraft was to become the catalyst for the foundation of the
Dumfries and Galloway Aviation Museum. • On the night of 23 September 1943, B-17 Flying Fortress 42-3449 WW-X piloted by Immanuel J Klette (Manny Klette) crashed in a wood just short of the RAF Wing runway, while returning battled damaged from flak, on one engine and with little fuel after a bombing mission to Nantes, France. The crew survived, but Klette and his Navigator were badly injured. Rehabilitated at RAF Halton and at the Churchill Hospital Oxford, Lt. Col Klette went on to fly more missions than any other USAAF bomber pilot and was buried with full military honours at Arlington Cemetery. A plaque to the incident has been mounted in the private wood by the landowner and an aviation researcher. • One of the five hangars was destroyed when Wellington HE854 crashed on 9 June 1944 while taking off to complete a flying test, killing its two crew (Harry Wilkes DFM 156139 & Francis ‘Dickie’ Hubbard 161253), two WAAFs (Emily Dickens 2021702 & Ann Reeves 2025511) and a male member of maintenance unit crew (Corporal Harold ‘Frank’ Hoare 32810). Two Wellington aircraft (HE854 & HE786) were destroyed in the subsequent fire along with a Queen Mary transporter that had a Tomahawk fighter on its trailer.
After closure Soon after closing, all the hangars were removed. In the late 1950s, a large
battery chicken farm was built on the northern end of the north-south runway. In the early 1960s, a large pig breeding farm, operated by Anglian Pig Breeders, was established on the airfield, occupying some of the old RAF buildings: new sheds were erected on the sites of old hangars and large open air pig pens in other areas of the airfield. This farm ceased trading in the mid 1960s. During this period, a section of runway at the south eastern side of the airfield was dug up and removed. A model aircraft club used the western end of the main runway in the 1960s, but that too was dug up and removed a few years later. The control tower, located south of the east-west runway, remained in a derelict state for many years before being demolished in the 1970s. In the 1980s part of the airfield was used as a testing station for containers of oxygen and other gases.
RAF Wing Memorial In June 2021, Greg Smith (Member of Parliament for Buckingham) and Lynn Taylor Overend (daughter of RAF Wing veteran and Physical Training Instructor Eric Taylor) unveiled a memorial to those who served and flew at RAF Wing. The three walled brick built memorial sits by the perimeter track where the main parades took place, and just across from the old main runway. It has individual aluminium plaques to No.26 Operational Training Unit, to the final take off site of Captain Valentine Baker and the ill fated Martin Baker MB3 aircraft in 1942 and to the major repatriation role played by the airfield in 1945 in Operation Exodus. The memorial site was donated by an airfield farmer, the project funded by the local citizen and business community and led by local resident Nick Ellins and the Aircrew Remembrance Society. Remembrance plaques are also mounted on the memorial fence to those killed at the airfield itself, including to Sergeant Sidney John Dean who died nearby in February 1943 (see Wartime Incidents above) and to the five killed nearby, when Wellington HE854 crashed in June 1944. Two aircrew, two WAAFs and one male ground personnel were killed in the incident - See Wartime Incidents. A further remembrance plaque, bust and information board have been installed by Nick Ellins, the Martin-Baker Aircraft Company and the Aylesbury Vale Golf Club at the nearby crash site of Captain Valentine Baker and the Martin-Baker MB3, and another by Nick Ellins and farmer Henry Hunt at the 1943 crash site of the B-17 Flying Fortress piloted by legendary American aviator Immanuel J Klette - See Wartime Incidents.
London Airport In the late 1960s the former airfield was considered for the site of the third London Airport following a publication of a report by the
Roskill Commission. Wing (officially referred to as Cublington in the report), was considered to be ideally situated for access from all parts of the country and only fifty miles from London. A public inquiry was opened at Aylesbury on 14 July 1969 after a protest by 2,000 people through Aylesbury. As a result of the protest and also revised government thinking, the new airport plan was abandoned. As a permanent celebration of the victory, Buckinghamshire County Council planted a spinney of over 400 trees and a monument on a 3-acre site that would have been at the centre of the airport that would have dwarfed Heathrow in size. ==RAF units and aircraft==