RAF Bassingbourn

RAF Bassingbourn USAAF Station 121 Bassingbourn Barracks
Royston, Cambridgeshire
1955 Aerial photograph of Royal Air Force Station Bassingbourn
RAF Bassingbourn Location in Cambridgeshire
Coordinates	52°05′48″N 000°03′11″W / 52.09667°N 0.05306°W / 52.09667; -0.05306Coordinates: 52°05′48″N 000°03′11″W / 52.09667°N 0.05306°W / 52.09667; -0.05306
Code	BS
Site information
Owner	Ministry of Defence
Operator	Royal Air Force United States Army Air Forces United States Air Force
Controlled by	RAF Bomber Command (1938-1942; 1951-1969) Eighth Air Force (1942-1945) RAF Transport Command (1945-1949) United States Air Forces in Europe (1950-1953) British Army (1969-Present)
Site history
Built	1937 (1937)-38
In use	1938-2014 (2014)
Battles/wars	Second World War Air Offensive, Europe Cold War
Airfield information
Elevation	24 metres (79 ft) AMSL
Runways Direction Length and surface 07/25 1,825 metres (5,988 ft) Asphalt 13/31 1,310 metres (4,298 ft) Asphalt 17/35 1,270 metres (4,167 ft) Asphalt

Second World War

Royal Air Force Bassingbourn or more simply RAF Bassingbourn is a former Royal Air Force station located in Cambridgeshire approximately 3 mi (5 km) north of Royston, Hertfordshire and 11 mi (18 km) south west of Cambridge, Cambridgeshire, England.

During the Second World War it served first as an RAF station and then as a bomber airfield of the Eighth Air Force, of the United States Army Air Forces (USAAF). It remains the home of the Tower Museum Bassingbourn.

RAF Bassingbourn was constructed by John Laing & Son between 1937 and 1939 in the parishes of Wendy and Bassingbourn immediately to the west of the A14 (now the A1198) road. The site selected was low ground between several tributaries of the River Cam. The area had been long cleared of forest and tended to be swampy and unstable, and because the boggy ground produced a persistent mist over the large meadow the site was considered ideal for airfield camouflage.

The project was begun in April 1937 under the direction of Sir Maurice Laing, with Reginald Silk as the site engineer and John Crowther the site surveyor. Four C Type hangars (300 ft (91 m) long by 152 ft (46 m) wide by 29 ft (8.8 m) high, with eleven roof gables and hipped ends) were erected by a sub-contractor in a semi-circle at the south edge of the airfield site approximately one mile north of the hamlet of Kneesworth. Laing then began work pouring concrete foundations for the technical site buildings, communal sites and barracks; the nature of the ground necessitated the rebuilding of several foundations that had sunk into the ground. Roadway cores were built of unusual thickness to prevent crumbling of the pavement.