Home to No 75 New Zealand Squadron flying Short Stirlings and later Avro Lancasters.
The area now has reverted to pre-war use as agricultural land, and over part of the site an industrial park. The site is also cut in to by the A142 bypass, but old maps show where the main areas once were. There are a few hints of its past though.
Several tracks cut across the fields shadowing the old runways and service routes. On the outskirts of the site are also piles of rubble which look to have been small sheds and buildings in the recent past. The control tower no longer exists, but was only pulled down in 1988, which seems to shame. The airfield was in use until 1963 and it was during this time that a ghost of an airman was seen on several occasions. One witness was apparently an RAF policeman, who saw a pilot in full flying gear appear and disappear in front of him. As far as I know, the ghost has not been seen recently, perhaps being more associated with the control tower than the land in general.
Cutting across the track elsewhere on site you can just about make out a concrete strip, which looks to be remnants of the main airstrip. These runways are haunted by the sounds of a heavy bomber coming into land, but when the listener turns around there are no planes in sight.
The last photo here is of Park Road, in the village of Sutton. The village borders the lower edge of the base. On 8th Sept 1943 18 bombers took off from the base. A Stirling bomber slid off the runway, hit a fuel tank and crashed in to numbers 17 and 18. The houses were destroyed and Mr Randall who was watching the take off from his garden was sadly killed, along with the flight crew from the Stirling. His wife was injured but survived. This story was told to me by someone at the nearby RAF Witchford museum.
///enthused.acrobats.trailers
