Lincolnshire Airfields In the Second World War

It might seem hard to imagine it now, but at the peak of wartime aviation, Lincolnshire was home to some 46 military airfields. These airfields covered an estimated 30,000 acres of the county, accommodating 80,000 RAF personnel, including squadrons from America, Australia, Canada and Poland. Britain’s most famous airmen of all, the Dambusters, had their base here.

Each of those airfields is described here, and details of its wartime function given. Also highlighted are the many and varied aircraft that comprised the operational units. Numbered among them are the Lancaster, Manchester, Hampden, Wellington, Hurricane, Spitfire and Beaufighter.

These, and the young airmen who flew them, made an immense contribution to the defeat of the Third Reich, as Allied bombers and fighters flew increasingly larger raids across the North Sea and into the dangerous smoke-filled skies of occupied Europe.

Lincolnshire Airfields in the Second World War tells their story.