Monument record MBC48549 - Site of vehicle depot, temporary camp and accommodation camp for Thame Airfield, Haddenham

A probable accommodation camp and a vehicle depot of World War II date are visible on historic aerial photographs as extant buildings and soilmarks and were mapped as part of the Aylesbury Vale Aerial Investigation and Mapping project (EBC18604). Located outside the southwestern corner of the former airfield, on the south side of Thame Road, Haddenham, and centred at SP 473343 208527. The camp consisted of 16 Nissen Huts, and a central larger building which may have been a canteen but no plan of RAF Thame was available to the project to confirm the function of the buildings. All these buildings were connected by covered walkways and there was one blast shelter at the southern end of the buildings and a Stanton air raid shelter on the west side of the buildings. In 1946 there appear to be approximately 270 vehicles, probably small vans, visible parked at the site but marks on the grass show that approximately 30 more have also been parked there long enough for the grass surface to have been damaged sufficiently for the marks to be visible in photographs from 1949 and 1950. These may be associated with businesses that operated from the Airfield, one being Airtech which converted planes to carry supplies for the Berlin Airlift. The accommodation site has been redeveloped piecemeal with some buildings remaining in 1961 and 1973 but all wartime buildings have been removed by 1997 and the field to the west has been redeveloped for housing. (1-11)