WW2 Airfields Archive

Dedicated to RAF & USAAF Second World War airfields. Celebrating the people, architecture, & WW2 airfield stories.

[Marc Heighway @NewForestRamble]

The former RAF Holmsley South (New Forest) from the air in the 1960s. The aircraft dispersal areas still in place, but now holiday caravans are parked up, instead of wartime planes.

[Polish Heritage Flight @FlightPolish]

Polands Last Spitfires 🇵🇱🇬🇧

In autumn 1945 the Royal Air Force sent Polish-squadron Spitfires to Warsaw for a public exhibition of the wartime Royal Air Force. Polish pilots of the exile air force were not allowed to fly them in as Stalin’s authorities did not recognise the London government, so British pilots made the delivery flights.

A first pair including a 308 Squadron aircraft, turned back after landing at Soviet-controlled Poznań. A second pair completed the journey on 29 October 1945:

• TB581, Spitfire https://t.co/48o3bdgtIG XVI, coded JH-Q, from 317 (Wilno) Squadron
• TB292, Spitfire https://t.co/48o3bdgtIG XVI, coded QH-Z, from 302 (Poznań) Squadron

Both were late-war high-back XVIs. They were freshly painted for the exhibition; the word “POLAND” under the chequerboard and the usual squadron badges were omitted.

TB581 stood in front of the National Museum and was the showpiece when the RAF exhibition opened that day. TB292 remained for a time at Okęcie airfield, where airport staff photographed themselves beside it.

Late in 1945 both aircraft were presented as a gift from RAF command to the Polish Army Museum. They stood in the open on the museum grounds through 1946–47 and appear in photographs of May 1947, TB581 on the left.

In the early 1950s they were ordered destroyed. The Political Directorate of the Polish Army treated them as traces of the Polish armed effort in the West. Ground crew from the Technical Aviation School at Boernerowo dismantled them and sent the remains for scrap. A few cockpit instruments were quietly taken by students.

No fragment of TB581 or TB292 is known to survive on public display. The only complete Spitfire in Poland today is SM411 at the Polish Aviation Museum in Kraków, painted to represent a different aircraft: 308 Squadron’s TB995.

Only 2 Spitfires exist in the world that saw service in the Polish Air Force during the Second World War and still carry these Polish markings today.

Part of the Polish Heritage Flight when it was formed in November 2019, Spitfire BM597, a Mk Vb, flew solely with 315 and 317 Squadrons from RAF Woodvale in 1942–43 as PK-C and then JH-C; restored in 1997,it still flies and was exported to Australia in 2025 after ownership was passed to Aerial Speed Icons Ltd in 2023.

Spitfire BS410, a Mk IX with 315 Squadron at Northolt (PK-E / PK-A), flew some 35 sorties before being abandoned in combat on 13 May 1943. Rebuilt as a two-seat Tr.9 (G-TCHI), it returned to the air in 2022 and remains based in the United Kingdom and operates with Spitfires. com and was the aeroplane given a temporary ‘K5054’ colour scheme to commemorate 90 years since the Spitfire first flight this year.

ML407, the Grace Spitfire (G-LFIX), is an airworthy Mk IX converted after the war to a two-seat Tr.9. Built at Castle Bromwich in 1944, she flew 176 operational sorties with six Allied squadrons of 2nd Tactical Air Force. After service with 485 (New Zealand) and 341 (Free French) Squadrons she was on the strength of No. 308 (Kraków) Squadron very briefly in January 1945, coded ZF.

Two Polish pilots flew her on two sorties: a weather reconnaissance and a dive-bombing mission. She then passed to Belgian, Free French and Norwegian units before returning to 485. She remains based in the United Kingdom with Ultimate Fighters at Sywell in Northamptonshire. (In fact as I am writing this she has just flown over my house!😊)

Other flying Spitfires wear Polish markings only as representations.

So, as things stand: three airworthy veterans, no intact static original from a Polish squadron on public display, and the two that once stood in Warsaw no longer exist.

We believe and hope that one day Poland gets the airworthy Spitfire it deserves.

Remember. Inspire. Unity. 🇬🇧🇵🇱

#spitfire #poland #ww2 #airshow

[Marc Heighway @NewForestRamble]

In early 1940, flat heathland on the eastern side of the New Forest was considered a potential landing point for enemy aircraft. Anti landing ditches were dug and gravel piled up, to make any landing trickier. 1/3 🧵

[Marc Heighway @NewForestRamble]

A wonderful photo of Joan Hughes, ATA Ferry Pilot who flew from Hamble in Hampshire. Here she's just delivered a Short Stirling bomber to a UK airfield.

[WW2 Airfields Archive @WW2Airfields]

P-47D-16 Damn Yankee, 405FS, 42-7609 371st Fighter Group.

[Marc Heighway @NewForestRamble]

This is a piece of 'Sommerfeld tracking' from the former RAF Bisterne. It was stretched out on rolls, a bit like chicken wire, to create a temporary runway. However, under the weight of American P-47 Thunderbolts it didn't fare too well...

[Voices of WW2 @VoicesofWW2]

P-40 Warhawk fighter 'Little Joe II' at the Kunming airfield in Yunnan, China, 1 September 1944

[Marc Heighway @NewForestRamble]

I was interviewed by the BBC for a Podcast this month. Search BBC Sounds Secret Hampshire and you can find it... about the New Forest's wartime airfields.

[WW2 Airfields Archive @WW2Airfields]

WW2 airfield...

[Marc Heighway @NewForestRamble]

One result of the heatwave is that it brings out the ghostly footprints of wartime architecture that was dismantled from the New Forest 80 years ago.

[Marc Heighway @NewForestRamble]

This week my friend and I visited the site where Russel Hamer lost his life. We found the tree that he had hit, whilst making an attempt to crash land his stricken aircraft at RAF Beaulieu. 84 years later, the split in the tree is still visible.

[Marc Heighway @NewForestRamble]

The recent heatwave has burned grass off, and in Beaulieu village in the New Forest, this has exposed some long forgotten wartime secrets. You can now see the marks where concrete anti tank blocks were placed to form part of a road block against a German invasion.

[Marc Heighway @NewForestRamble]

Rooftop view from the former RAF Ibsley Control Tower. The building now overlooks Blashford Lakes. The lakes are originally where the runways were. The runways were dug up post-war, and quarried... but now a nature reserve.

[Marc Heighway @NewForestRamble]

Today is the anniversary of the death of Reg Baker in 1944. He was the Wing Commander for all four Typhoon squadrons based at Needs Oar Point airfield in the Forest on D-Day. Reg was an exceptional man and leader. He was shot down and killed over Normandy on June 16, 1944. 🧵

[Marc Heighway @NewForestRamble]

This is the original grave marker of a man named Dirk Jacobus Klink. He died in his Spitfire, on his birthday, 13 June 1942. He took off that day from RAF Ibsley on what should have been a routine training flight. For 2nd Lt Dirk Jacobus Klink, it was also his 30th birthday. 🧵

[Marc Heighway @NewForestRamble]

On this day in 1937, Reginald Joseph Mitchell, the designer of the Supermarine Spitfire, died in Southampton at the age of just 42. Mitchell never lived to see the impact the aircraft he helped to create would have. It became one of the defining symbols of WW2. 🧵

[WW2 Airfields Archive @WW2Airfields]

What a wonderful view.

[The World at War @TheWorldatWar2]

A British RAF Short Stirling at an airfield in England, date unknown #royalairforce #raf #stirling #england #history #aviation #1940s #ww2

[Ravilious @Ravilious1942]

Spitfires On A Camouflage Runway, Eric Ravilious, c.1942. The original artwork is in the collection of @I_W_M. #RAF #WW2

[Marc Heighway @NewForestRamble]

I have sections of runway from one of the New Forest D-Day airfields. It has been cut into manageable pieces which will fit in a car boot, and will be sold to raise money for East Boldre Village Hall at The Buckler's Hard Wartime Weekend (History & Heritage Event)... 🧵

[WW2 Airfields Archive @WW2Airfields]

USAAF 365th Fighter Group, aka "Hell Hawks".