Monument record 0849800000 - Finmere airfield

Military airfield opened as a satellite to Bicester in 1942, transferred to 9 Group Fighter Command in June 1943 with OTU flying Mosquito and Bostons until March 1945 (B1).
A landing ground at Finmere was used by Blenheims of 13 OTU Bicester early in 1941 but was not established as an airfield until August 1942. Finmere had a very curious layout. Runway 06/25 was parallel to the A421 Oxford road, its intersection with the other two runways at the northern tip of the former. From the air Finmere appeared to have radiating runways from a hub near the junction of A421 and B4031 roads. A watch office was placed almost in the centre of the landing ground. Adjacent to the tower were the flight and aircrew offices. Bomb dumps were to be found to the north-west of the remaining good state BI hangar. There were a large number of huts for personnel. After the war the airfield was used for Sunday markets, agriculture and recreational flying by the Vintage Aircraft Club (B2).
There was a civil airfield before the Second World War at Tingewick which was incorporated into the Finmere airfield. The civil airfield was an Automobile Association Landing Ground with a small hangar but otherwise no facilites (B3).

A Second World War Royal Air Force base and military airfield is visible on historic aerial photographs and was mapped as part of the North Buckinghamshire Aerial Investigation and Mapping project (EBC18304). Located south of Finmere and centred at SP 64531 31911, the RAF Finmere airfield was used as an Operational Training Unit (No. 13 OTU) for the training of aircrew on a succession of British and American bomber and fighter-bomber aircraft types as the war progressed. The airfield comprised three concrete runways that facilitated operations by heavier bomber aircraft, complete with Drem electric runway lighting that allowed for night flying. Although nominally a Class 'A' airfield, having three crossed concrete runways in a triangular pattern that, from the air, look like the letter ‘A’, the runway configuration at Finmere had to be modified to fit within an area that was surrounded by a local road network and settlements. This resulted in all three concrete runways radiating from the northern tip of the airfield. 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 Finmere, however, the longest runway is 1,800 metres long and aligned W-E. The remaining two runways are 1,300 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 27 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 comprises the Technical Area, the Landing Ground General area, the Bomb Stores, an ex-Contractors Camp and a Defence Area. The airfield had one T2 type hangar in the Technical Area to the east of the airfield and a Type B1 hangar in the Landing Ground General area SE of the bomb stores. The Technical Area comprised the technical and logistical infrastructure required to keep operational and maintain its aircraft: various maintenance workshops, storehouses, aviation fuel depots and fuel compounds, motor transport section, armoury, guardroom, toilets, hangar and electricity substations. The Landing Ground General area comprised the watch office, workshops, various store and supply buildings, machine gun range, (airfield) broadcasting building, cloud searchlight (a powerful light mounted on a plinth and used to determine the height of the cloud base), toilets, squadron and flight offices, hangar, flight dispersal huts, battle headquarters, operations room and crew rooms. The Defence Area and Ex-Contractors’ Camp provided accommodation and latrine for airfield and RAF Regiment personnel. To the SW of the airfield are the bomb stores, comprising 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. Other pyrotechnic store buildings are also sited there.

After the war, RAF Finmere’s runways, dispersals and perimeter tracks became a storage area for the RAF’s No. 38 Group (Transport Command), storing many tonnes of surplus ammunition and other equipment. Aerial photographs taken between 1947 and 1951 show the extent of this storage area, with rows of buildings or ammunition hutments lined up in small groups, with about a 90 metres gap between each group, presumably to limit damage in case of fire or accidental explosion. These are no longer present on aerial photographs taken in 1961.

Some of the airfield buildings and dispersal areas have been demolished by 1973, with more removed by 1988. 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 east of the airfield perimeter, there are a further 5 RAF camps and sites that accommodated RAF and WAAF personnel and provided healthcare and sewage services. Each of these camps are described separately.

However, on aerial photographs and remote sensing data taken in 2019, elements of the runways, perimeter track some buildings remain extant structures. About 1,350 metres of the main W-E aligned runway survives. Of the other two runways, about 370 metres of the SW-NE and 550 metres of the SE-NW aligned runways survive, the remainder being grass or covered by trees. Also, fragmented sections of the perimeter track survive to the N and the SW. Both hangars survive and are repurposed for light industry and/or agriculture. Other buildings that have not been demolished include the watch office, some of the bomb store buildings.

It is possible that the battle headquarters remain within a small area of dense scrubland adjacent the Finmere to Newton Purcell road, though this is speculative. This is a standard type 11008/41 battle headquarters and comprises a 8.5 metres by 2.7 metres wide underground brick and concrete/steel reinforced building, with an small extra room to one side, all covered with a thick concrete slab (6-30)