RAF Hemswell

Royal Air Force Hemswell, or RAF Hemswell, is a former Royal Air Force station located east of Gainsborough, Lincolnshire, England.

Located close to the village of Hemswell in Lincolnshire, England the disestablished airfield is now in full use as a civilian industrial and retail trading estate, forming part of the newly created parish of Hemswell Cliff along with the station's married quarters and RAF-built primary school that are now in non-military ownership.

The airfield was used by RAF Bomber Command for 20 years between 1937 and 1957 and saw most of its operational life during the Second World War. It was used again by Bomber Command as a nuclear ballistic missile base during the Cold War and then closed to military use in 1967.

On 19 March 1940 RAF Hemswell-based Handley Page Hampdens of No. 61 Squadron RAF were the first Bomber Command aircraft to drop bombs on German soil during the Second World War. The target was the Hörnum seaplane base on the northern Germany coast.

RAF Hemswell was used as a substitute for RAF Scampton in most of the ground-based filming of the 1954 war film The Dam Busters

First World War

The first airfield on the site was opened in 1918 by the Royal Flying Corps and called RFCS Harpswell after the village of that name just across the A631 road.

During the First World War it was used as a night landing ground and two night flying training squadrons were established there. In June 1919 the grass airfield was returned to its former use as farmland.

Second World War

In 1935 construction began on compulsory repurchased land. The new bomber airfield, now called RAF Hemswell, was opened on New Year's Eve 31 December 1936 to accommodate the rapidly expanding Bomber Command. The station was home for Hawker Hind, Hawker Audax, Avro Anson, Bristol Blenheim and Boulton Paul Overstrand aircraft in its early days.

On 19 March 1940 RAF Hemswell-based Handley Page Hampdens of No. 61 Squadron RAF were the first Bomber Command aircraft to drop bombs on German soil during the Second World War. The target was the Hörnum seaplane base on the northern Germany coast.

The station and its squadrons (61 and 144) initially formed part of No. 5 (Bomber) Group RAF with its group headquarters at St Vincents House, St Vincents Road, Grantham,5 Gp HQ transferring to No. 1 Bomber Group RAF at RAF Hucknall, Nottinghamshire in June 1941.

During the war years various squadrons were posted to Hemswell, including many Polish personnel flying Vickers Wellingtons. During the war a total of 122 bomber aircraft and their crews were lost on operations from Hemswell, including 38 Handley Page Hampdens, 62 Vickers Wellingtons and 22 Avro Lancasters.

The Irish actress, Beatrice Campbell's first husband, Squadron Leader Michael Robert MacClancy, of No. 226 Squadron RAF, died aged 22, on 12 April 1942 at RAF Hemswell, when his aircraft crash landed. She subsequently married Nigel Patrick.

Hemswell operated as a dual site with a nearby overflow airfield at RAF Ingham. RAF Ingham was a grassed field landing ground with few buildings or facilities. Between 1941 and 1943 the Polish bomber squadrons (No. 305 Polish Bomber Squadron, No. 301 Polish Bomber Squadron and No. 300 Polish Bomber Squadron) used the airfield for their Wellington operations. The squadrons used Ingham while training and also flew operations from there whilst the runways were being laid at Hemswell in anticipation of the arrival of the heavier Avro Lancaster. Ingham was later renamed RAF Cammeringham and became a full station in its own right, closing for aircraft use in 1945 when the grass runways became unstable and taking on a ground training role.RAF Ingham Cliffe House, that had been commandeered as the officers' mess and a number of pre-fabricated buildings, quonset huts and the brick built control tower still stand at the abandoned airfield.RAF Cammeringham airfield photos

With the arrival of the Avro Lancaster, Hemswell took on a training role, becoming the home to No. 1 Lancaster Finishing School. This school was tasked with giving Lancaster experience to aircrews who had just finished their training at a Heavy Conversion Unit prior to posting to an operational squadron. During 1944, as Lancasters were then being used at Heavy Conversion Units, the Lancaster Finishing Schools were disbanded and Hemswell again took on an operational role. No. 150 and 170 squadrons took up residence and commenced flying bomber operations until the end of the war. The film "Night Bombers" was shot at Hemswell during this period.

Cold War

After the war a variety of aircraft were stationed at Hemswell including de Havilland Mosquitos, Avro Lancasters and Avro Lincolns, English Electric Canberras with various peacetime roles undertaken including ex-prisoner-of-war repatriation, the dropping of food supplies during the relief of Holland and the Berlin Blockade, goodwill visits to foreign countries, electronic counter measures and nuclear air sampling over hydrogen bomb test sites in the Pacific and Australia.

Hemswell continued in operational flying use by RAF Bomber Command until as late as 1956. The last flying squadrons had departed in January of that year but RAF Hemswell was then established as a Bomber Command missile unit, maintaining and operating three nuclear-armed PGM-17 Thor intermediate-range ballistic missile launchers of No 97 (Strategic Missile) Squadron RAF that remained at Hemswell from December 1959 to May 1963.

Each missile was tipped with a one-megaton nuclear warhead, jointly controlled by the Royal Air Force and the United States Air Force under the so-called dual-key arrangements. RAF Hemswell was also the headquarters for the No. 5 (Lincolnshire) Missile Dispersal Sites located at RAF Bardney, RAF Caistor, RAF Coleby Grange and RAF Ludford Magna. The Cuban Missile Crisis brought the entire UK based Thor missile force to maximum strategic alert and readiness for a ten-day period during October and November 1962.

In 1964 the station was designated and prepared as an operational conversion unit for the expected deployment of the planned TSR-2 (Tactical Strike and Reconnaissance) aircraft. But when the TSR-2 programme was cancelled by the Labour Government of Harold Wilson in 1965, RAF Hemswell had a brief existence as a sub site of 7 School of Recruit Training whose headquarters were at RAF Swinderby. Recruit training continued from Hemswell but the station was eventually placed on "Care and Maintenance" in 1967, when it was decided that all future recruit training would be carried out at RAF Swinderby.

During 1967 the gliders of No. 643 Gliding School RAF Air Training Corps (ATC) moved in from RAF Kirton in Lindsey. No. 643 GS operated from Hemswell until 1974, giving ATC cadets air experience and glider pilot training until moving to RAF Lindholme on 1 April 1974.

This event marked the last RAF use of the airfield which closed and was largely sold with the runways being broken up and used as hardcore for the extension of the A180 road. For several years the buildings were occupied by Ugandan nationals expelled from their country by Idi Amin. The entire technical site and domestic blocks including estates of post war married quarters were purchased by Roger Byron-Collins of Welbeck Estate Group from the Ministry of Defence in the mid-1980s. Nearby the Group had previously purchased 127 NCO married quarter site at nearby RAF Faldingworth in 1981 and the nearby Bomber Command HQ at RAF Bawtry. Also acquired closeby were 110 post war NCO Married quarters at RAF Scampton. Welbeck Estate Group disposed of several of the buildings at RAF Hemswell to different buyers by private treaty. Those buildings that remained including several barrack blocks, the Sergeant's mess, Officers mess, station cinema, water tower, SHQ and guardroom etc were eventually sold by their agents, Earl and Lawrence of Lincoln by public auction which was held in one of the Mess buildings. Throughout the years of operation, RAF Hemswell's mascot and motto were a large weasel rearing-up on its hind legs ready to strike and the words "Bold and Tenacious" emblazoned over (or under) it.

In popular culture

Hemswell was used as a substitute for RAF Scampton in the ground-based filming of the 1954 film The Dam Busters as the wartime layout of both Scampton and Hemswell was similar in many places. The film "Night Bombers" remains the best known filmed record of what RAF Hemswell looked like during and just after the war, which is a colour film of Avro Lancasers at Hemswell in preparation for a raid over Germany which shows briefings, loading of bombs and the raid itself and was the only known colour film of Lancasters at war. Scenes for The Dam Busters film were filmed in various offices of the station headquarters; the front entrance, the bedrooms, ante room and dining room of the officers' mess; hangars and the NAAFI canteen with the latter used for the squadron briefing theatre scenes, as well as on the roadways within the base. The similarities between Scampton and Hemswell continue to cause confusion. It has been said that, at the end of the film actor Richard Todd can be seen walking up the main driveway at Hemswell past Gibson House in the direction of the hangar line; this scene was in fact shot at Scampton.

At the time of filming RAF Hemswell operated Avro Lincolns, very similar in design to the Lancaster. Several of these aircraft appeared in background shots during filming, doubling for additional No. 617 Squadron Lancasters, as the filmmakers only had three airworthy and fully-flying Lancasters available to them.

Squadrons and units located at RAF Hemswell