RAF Gaydon (WW2 Airfield)

1 A three runway bomber airfield opened June 1942 as a satellite to RAF Chipping Warden but soon transferred to RAF Wellesbourne Mountford. Major facilities included: two 1400 yard (1.28Km) runways; one 1600 yard (1.46Km) runway; 1 type B1 hanger; 1 type T2 hanger.
2 Report of a student project investigating the changing land use of all RAF airfields in the modern county of Warwickshire.
3 Report, not normally available to the public, of June 1976. Lists 375 buildings at RAF Gaydon, although many of these will be post WW2.
4 Vertical air photograph.
5 Leaflet.
6 Details the social history and operational use of the airbase.
7 Nuclear bomb store, known as a clutch, for V-bombers at RAF Gaydon. Clutches specific to V-bomber fields. Radioactive core kept in lead-lined compartment. Precise location on RAF airfield unknown. Also fuzzy photograph of main bunkers where assembled warheads stored.
8 The V-bombers entered service in 1955 with the Vickers Valiant.
9 Ed Wilson thinks 7 may in fact be at Kineton MWA8856.
10 The nuclear bomb store 7 was definitely here.
11 Although for thirty two years Gaydon was an RAF station, it really had two separate and distinct existences. For the majority of its first four years or so it was a satellite airfield deeply engaged in operational training for crews of Bomber Command, and then briefly the airfield was used for glider pilot training until August 1946. There was an interval of 8 years and the airfield was virtually reconstructed, before reopening in March 1954 as a V-bomber crew training base. Gaydon finally closed 20 years later. Detailed information.