Monument record 0847700000 - Turweston airfield

Military airfield opened 23/11/1942. Used by RAF with Wellingons and Anson of 12 OTU here 23/11/42 to 4/43. Mitchells of 13 OUT here from 30/4/43. Bostons of No 307 FTU here 5/43. Wellingtons of 17 OUT here 7/43. No 17 OTU Gunnery Flight with Wellingtons and Martinets formed here 11/43.
Three concrete runways.(B1)
Now used for agriculture and as a private airfield for recreational flying.
No archaeological features observed during waching brief. Made ground deposits relating to the construction of the airfield were observed. They comprised layers of loose, fine yellow sand, 1003, or grey, compact chalky silty clay, 1004, with an average thickness of c. 0.3m (B3).

Royal Air Force Turweston, a Second World War military airfield is visible on historic aerial photographs and was mapped as part of the North Buckinghamshire Aerial Investigation and Mapping project (EBC18304). Located about 1.5 kilometres east of Turweston village and centred at SP 61830 38244, the military airfield and its associated satellite camps opened in November 1942. The airfield was used as a bomber training base by various Operational Training Units (OTUs), hosting various aircraft types such as Vickers Wellington bombers, Avro Anson and de Havilland Mosquito multi-role aircraft, Airspeed AX10 Oxford bomber trainers and North American B-25 Mitchell and Douglas A-20 Boston medium bombers. In 1945, the airfield was closed but was retained by the Air Ministry, though agricultural cultivation was permitted. RAF Turweston was a Class 'A' airfield, having three crossed concrete runways in a triangular pattern that, from the air, look like the letter ‘A’. The longest runway was designated the main strip and usually aligned SW-NE to allow aircraft to take off and land into the prevailing wind. At RAF Turweston, however, the longest runway is 1,800 metres long and aligned W-E. The remaining two runways are 1,000 metres and 1,200 metres long and were used for aircraft operations when the wind was blowing from other directions. All runways are an airfield class type standard width of 46 metres. Each side of the runway strip was cleared of obstructions and levelled for another 90 metres. At the end of each runway, an obstruction free area was cleared to an angle of fifteen degrees outward from each side to provide a flightway called a funnel. The runways are connected by an outer perimeter track of a standard 15 metres width, which allowed aircraft to taxi to/from 28 frying-pan shaped concrete hardstanding areas called dispersals. The dispersals allowed aircraft to be spaced well apart in case of aerial attack or some other aircraft accident or fire. The airfield had a single T2 type hangar located in the NE corner within Site No.1 (airfield). Site No. 1 comprised the technical, logistical and administrative buildings and infrastructure required to run the operational airfield and maintain its aircraft: various workshops, armoury, control tower/watch office, operations room, crew rooms and huts, squadron and flight offices, various store and supply buildings, toilets, aviation fuel depots and fuel compounds, firing range, mechanical and electrical (M&E) plinths, motor transport section, guardroom, station headquarters, admin offices, toilets, sentry posts, sergeants’ and airmens’ quarters and ablutions blocks, officers’ quarters and ablutions blocks.

To the SE of the airfield are the bomb stores. Located within Westbury Wild are a number of bomb storage bays, rows of concrete building bases sited between parallel concrete roads and surrounded by linear earthwork banks, with brick and concrete loading ramps at one end.

Some of the airfield buildings and dispersal areas have been demolished by 1973, with more removed by 1988. However, on aerial photographs and remote sensing data taken in 2019, the runways, perimeter track and 7 of the dispersals remain extant structures. Also surviving are an earth covered air raid shelter, latrine and store building, station headquarters, three barrack huts, the motor transport building, a fuel compound area and some of the airfield road network, as well as parts of the firing range remain extant. Many of the bomb dump earthworks and road network are extant within the woodland.

To the north of the airfield and the boundary road (Mill Road), there are a further 7 RAF camps and sites that accommodated RAF and WAAF personnel and provided healthcare and sewage services. (8-23).